What IF Noah's Ark was found?

Great Debates
81

Gaudere,

Thanks for the clarification on the other flood stories. I was not aware of them.

The Assyrian story seems to mostly closely parallel the Noah story. However, building something that massive in 7 days rules it out.

Again, the point of this post was to see what others would say if the boat i prescribed was found.

I still feel it would corroborate what the account of the story is of Noah in the Bible. I’m going to leave it at that.

The posters have opened my eyes to the fact however, that other theories are possible, such as the Assyrian legend.

But correspondingly, I think the posters have to say that if my preposition in the original post came to pass, that some credulity could be accredited to the Bible story.

To say “absolutley not” is just denial.

Patrick Ashley

“For those who believe, no evidence is necessary; for those who don’t believe, no evidence is enough.” -Unknown

82

Whipping boys are punished for the faults of others. I think Pashley has only his faults to blame here.

83

Actually I think there’s an invoice for a refrigerator in this box with me, and some of those styrafoam peanut thingies. Anybody want to come in the box with me and play :slight_smile:

Pashley:

Whenever I hear people who claim to have all the answers and posess some kind of superior point of view based on their special faith, I have two reactions.

First I suppress a hearty guffaw.

Second, I get reminded of JOB.

This poor righteous guy gets his whole family killed his property taken from him, becomes homeless and covered with sores, all to settle a bet between God and the Devil.

After putting up with this for a while he finally can’t take it any more and bitches at length to GOD about the raw deal he’s getting.

God’s Response?

“Where were you when I made the world?”

I always thought that this was the whole point of Job, that this was one of the truest things I ever heard.

What God in effect is saying is “Who are you to claim to know my mind? Who are you to question me? Who are you to thnk you understand and know all the answers?”

True or not, atheist or devout, it really doesn’t matter. It’s a valid point.

So let me ask you Pashley.

What makes you so special that you claim to know the ultimate truth and understand the mind of God?

The simpler and more likely alternative is that you are just arrogant and ignorant.

84

Esprix:

While i would like to believe that, and would like to just have a discussion, all I have had is insults against me and my religon. You think I like being attacked? I don’t. Most of these people don’t discuss, they just launch offensive tirades.

Look what happened between you and me. We started to respect each other’s opinions, and things got better. I’d like that to happen with these guys, but once i throw a comment about God out there, I am insulted.

Patrick Ashley

“For those who believe, no evidence is necessary; for those who don’t believe, no evidence is enough.” -Unknown

85

Actually you called us idiots in your second post. Remember?

86

There are inconsistencies with the story of Noah as well that others would say “rule it out,” but we can let that slide in your hypothetical situation.

That’s fine, pash - no problem there.

What else did you get out of this thread, aside from a general dislike of us all? :slight_smile:

Firstly, no one has said “absolutely not” - if I’m not mistaken, everyone here agreed that there was a possibility it were true, but went further to say that it would furnish neither hard-core fact nor hard-core fiction - the interpretation would be left up to each of us.

Secondly, what, exactly, would it be denial of? Your faith? Well, not everyone here shares your faith. If you didn’t want to hear that, you never should have put this question up in the first place.

Esprix

Ask the Gay Guy!

87

“The Assyrian story seems to mostly closely parallel the Noah story. However, building something that massive in 7 days rules it out.”

Why? Because it’s physically impossible to build a boat that large in seven days? Are we then to judge these stories on their scientific accuracy? Sounds like a double standard is being implied here.

If a flood were to cover all the land on Earth, it would require that the entire Earth be covered in water to a depth of about seven miles (the peak of Mt. Everest). This would require about 80 times the amount of water than is currently contained in all the oceans. Where did it come from?

If the entire Earth were covered in water for one year, its albedo would change drastically, and the temperature on Earth would drop like crazy, possibly starting another Ice Age.

For the amount of water described to fall as rain would require that it first be absorbed into the atmosphere. This is flatly impossible. The atmosphere cannot hold enough water vapour to allow that much water to condense out in 40 days/40 nights.

If the diameter of the Earth was suddenly increased by 15 miles, the density of the atmosphere would decrease, further lowering the temperature.

After the rain subsided, where would the water go? There is no evidence of this much water existing anywhere in or under the earth, and there is no known mechanism which would allow it to escape into space.

I won’t even bother touching on the problems of fitting the animals in the ark, or collecting animals from islands where no one from the Middle East had ever been (Komodo Dragons? Emperor Penguins?), etc. ad nauseum, because they have been debated before.

So, your premise is that, should a boat roughly fitting the ark’s description be found, we should all instantly convert to Christianity.

If you believe that hard evidence like that should instantly change one’s worldview, then how come you don’t believe that the flood story was a myth when there is far, far more evidence that it couldn’t have happened staring you right in the face?

And you call US close-minded.

88

Patrick:

No, Pat. If you were interested in a discussion, you would never have slandered those with whom you disagreed. And any insults against you, personally, you were more than deserving of. Your religion? Well, you have claimed to be a Catholic, an agnostic, and a creationist, and those are just off the top of my head. And if you go about claiming to be a creationist, then you set yourself up to be ridiculed. As far as being Catholic, or agnostic, well, Tom of tomndebb is Catholic, and numerous folk here consider themselves to be agnostic, including DavidB.

Honestly? Yeah, I do.

Well, you’ve got a hell of a way of showing it.

You mean like the primping and preening that you engaged in on some of the homosexual threads in this forum? Or is that correlative to religion? I can never remember.

Waste
Flick Lives!

89

Your cause IS lost here, in this thread, pashley.

Others here have hit upon all of the best points already, you need to see that asking for the evidence is futile on your part, because you do not comprehend rational scientific men. And we do not comprehend irrational believers, it is true.

I’ll give you the respect of addressing the OP:

The 500’ boat is found. There is a buried village nearby and a skeleton is found in a tomb. The carvings on the tomb reads “Noah”. There are several remains of thousands of animal bones scattered around and all of this is dated to 4,000+ years ago.

It would be a rich, great find for the scientific and religious community. It would enrich our knowledge of a people and time which is virtually forgotten. The site would become an instant pilgrimage destination for anthropologists, biologists, architects, Naval Engineers, botanists, the pope, Chistians, Muslims, Jews, etc. Even, I would try to make it over there (probably the Israel-Lebanon area). It would be very exciting.

And I would remain a devout unbeliever.

It would change two things for me, however. I would believe in the damn flood. Maybe not the earth-drowning OT deluge, but certainly a more regional disaster. You don’t get a huge, ancient, impractical monstrosity like the Ark up a mountain unless you’ve got one hell of a flood (or Fitzcarraldo! :)) Such a large, odd boat, matching biblical describtion would also help me interpret the bible in a more historical fashion as well. There’s not much historically reliable information in those old scrolls, so every little bit would help the bible’s scientific legitimacy. Not that it need it, I suppose.

Yet to be reconciled with the reality of the dark for a moment, I go on wandering from dream to dream.

90

If I have personally offended you, I hereby submit my most sincere apologies; however, I do not believe that I have posted anything which can be construed as an insult to you or your faith. If I have not committed such an act, not all responses have been insults. Do you consider questioning the rationality of your faith or assertions to be offensive?

91

Alas, Scylla is right. From your second post on this thread:

Granted, people were saying some ignorant things, like “Ooo, I want to be an anti-religious zealot, too!” But, then again, can you blame them? From that same post of yours, you said:

Pashley, plain and simple, that’s trolling. Since everyone seemed to guess correctly that your original intent was just to try to get people to admit that the Bible might be true in some way, and in turn extrapolate that out to validate your belief system, can you blame them for reacting with much sarcasm and rolling of eyes? C’mon, take a step back and at least see that much.

No, once you troll you get insulted. I’m not saying you’re a troll overall, but you very clearly set out to troll in this particular thread. Reap what ye sow, and all that.

I still maintain you are capable of reason and intellect, and if you focus on what is said in the thread and answering what is posed to you, you will do much better here.

Esprix

Ask the Gay Guy!

92

Scylla:

Look, whenever did I say I am the ultimate fount of truth and knowledge? Hardly.

But I think I know truth when i see it, as you think you do. You don’t want me to express what I believe, because I might say “I got it from the Bible.” And Lord knows, there can’t be any truth in that. Or morality. Or a decent way to live your life.

You seem to have read the book of Job, I am quite surprised. You seem to say “Why did God do this to Job?”, with your synopsis of the book. Where you once a religious person, and stuff like that turned you off? You ask why do people run to God, and say “Why are you doing this to me?”, or “Why don’t you help me?” and get seemingly nothing in return?

The problem of the existence of God, and he evil in the world. I don’t have the answer to that. Doesn’t mean there is not an answer.
I have read that in doing so (suffering), our faith is tested, we are disciplined, humbled and have our perspectives changed.

Why did you leave out that at the end of Job, that God restored Job’s fortunes, after Job came to humility and repentence? Were you aware of it?

Look, I don’t like getting into scripture here, some are clearly uninterested or hostile towards it, and I’ll respect that.

I would like to extend my hand to you Alfonzo (i believe that is your name), and perhaps we can talk more civily?

I did this with Esprix, happily.

Patrick Ashley

“For those who believe, no evidence is necessary; for those who don’t believe, no evidence is enough.” -Unknown

93

Now to more directly answer the question:

If a large boat like that were found, then a good scientist would have to consider the evidence, and weigh the possibility that the flood story has some basis in fact (note I said ‘some basis’. Many myths have some basis in fact without being literally true). After all, large parts of the bible are factual, and there are plenty of places and events in the Bible that correlate with known historical events. There have even been some recent archaological discoveries that corroborated events in the Bible that we previously thought were false or at least unproven.

So, we find a big boat. I would study the design of it, and see if it was similar to other vessels built in that time, albeit much larger. I would examine possible mechanisms for getting it on the mountain. I would study the area around it to see if it were possible that it was built there, perhaps even by ancient believers in the flood who built a replica as an offering to god, or as a temple. I’d look for evidence that it was moved there.

I’d study the surrounding terrain for signs of debris that would have settled with receding waters. I’d do a geographical survey to figure out if a local flood or tsunami could have washed the boat up that high.

In short, I’d look for lots of scientific reasons for its existance. But it certainly wouldn’t be any sort of proof that God exists, for that assumption would contrary to all my other scientific beliefs and tools, including the ones used to determine its very existance and age. You can’t have your cake and eat it too - If Carbon-14 dating is strong enough evidence for the existance of God, then you have to explain why Carbon-14 evidence DISPROVES many of the literal events in the Bible. You can’t have both.

94

Sure, I’ll comment on it- he’s not crass at all. He’s one of a number of people who have asked you simple, straightforward questions (why do you ignore the evidence against the Flood? Why would an ark have to be the ark of Noah rather than the ark of Deucalion or Utnapishtim?) which you have simply ignored. You have borne the most blatant sort of false witness, and for what? Do you really think that people are going to convert to Christianity when they see you act that way?

-Ben

95

The OP was “What would happen IF Noah’s Arc was found?”, not “Why is Noah’s Arc impossible to exist”. To answer this we must make some assumptions.

If we ignore the profound problems raised by other skeptics here, (This is not easy, but we are being hypothetical.) and we assume that Noah’s arc has been found and (somehow) verified, this would have profound effects on science. We would have to abandon or at least re-examine not just evolution, but engineering, ecology, animal husbandry, meteorology, archaeology, (just off the top of my head) … just about all of science.

If this happened, I guess I would be a believer, but not a follower. Any god who would give us so intelligence and reason, just to trick us like this is not worthy of any measure of respect from me without some serious explaining.

Virtually yours,

DrMatrix
These words are mine and they are true - Chief Meninock

96

Pashley said:

“I would like to extend my hand to you Alfonzo (i believe that is your name), and perhaps we can talk more civily?”

I will be glad to take your hand. I’ll even store it safely in my box, here under the packing peanuts. :slight_smile:

Call me Al. I would be glad to discuss anything civilly.
Please consider that the question of my faith or lack thereof has no bearing on the merits of my arguments.

Since you asked, I do believe in God, though I can’t tell you why. I am pretty sure the Supreme being of the universe probably bears little resemblance to our expectations of him/her/it.

That’s why I quoted Job.

I left out the part where God gives Job a new family to replace the one he killed because it was beside the point (and unsatisfying.)

I don’t think it literally happened but is simply a parable to illustrate the central point which I have described as God saying “don’t be so cocksure of yourself as far as what you think you know about me,” which is how I interpret the question God asked Job.

97

DrMatrix:

Although the title of the thread is something akin to “What IF Noah’s Ark where found?” the stipulation prescribed in the OP are what us “ardent skeptics” latched onto. There would definitely be serious repurcussions if Noah’s Ark were found; however, a question such as that has no merit for debate. It would belong in MPSIMS because one could only offer postulation as to what events might ensue.

98

Just out of curiousity. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that conclusive proof (sufficient for the most demanding skeptic) of the existence of Noah’s Ark were discovered. We all agree that Noah and his Ark were true historical events.

Why would this compel us all to become Christians? Wasn’t the flood in Genesis? Part of the Old Testament? How would it have any bearing on the truth of the New Testament. Wouldn’t the OP suggest we should all become Jews?

Also, nice work Dex (as usual) for having a truer and deeper understanding of the meaning of faith than any of the proseltyzers herein. Proof is irrelevant to faith.

99

OK, now THAT’S funny! You deserve a prize for that.

As I said before, pashley, your example was flawed from the start.

Esprix

Ask the Gay Guy!

100

Where did I ever start saying “Repent ye sinners?” I am not the witnessing type. I stand up for my faith, but I don’t say “Convert you heathen!” Do you people really think I believe I could do that?

Can’t a guy come in here that believes in God, and not get slaughtered?

Now, I am a “troll”, because I ask a question that provokes discussion?

What about:

"What if the pope went crazy? "

"Blacks Killing Whites is NOT a hate crime? "

These are trolling issues too?

Patrick Ashley

“For those who believe, no evidence is necessary; for those who don’t believe, no evidence is enough.” -Unknown