I listen to a lot of podcasts. I was looking around for some new ones when I stumbled on some podcasts by How Stuff Works. One of the podcasts tackled the question “Fact or Fiction: Could Noah’s Ark Really Have Happened?” Curious about what they might have to say, I gave it a listen. They hit on some criticisms I’ve heard before — like if there really was a vapor canopy above the atmosphere, as the Bible suggests, that the increased atmospheric pressure would make human life impossible, and that there doesn’t seem to be anywhere close to enough water on earth to cover all the land.
They talked about the fact that flood myths appear all over the world (suggesting that it might be true), and the possibility that the flood myth was just an exaggerated account of a real flooding. Overall, not a very through discussion about the plausibility of Noah’s Ark.
But, then, right at the end it got weird and non-committal:
Also, as you mentioned, it’s just impossible – atmospherically, meteorologically – for the water to have risen to the point that [it covered the] top of a mountain … [Robert Ballard] went diving at the bottom of the Black Sea to see if he could find any remains [of the Ark], and he didn’t. But, that’s not to say that the Ark didn’t exist, and it was never built. It could be simply that it wouldn’t have sunk into the Black Sea. Perhaps there was a different locale. And, so, really comes down to a question of ‘how much evidence do people really need?’ It sounds like it comes down to question of faith … So, if you want some empirical answer to whether or not the Ark existed, you could simply say, “the wood disintegrated”. Or skeptics could say, “It never really did happen.” But, we know for sure that there was the possibility that the world could have flooded based on the annual rise and fall of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, or there could have been an ice-cap. Whether or not anyone built an Ark to withstand the flood is a question that I think people have to answer on their own.
I see this all the time with popular magazines and television. They present a little bit of information – hopefully, stuff that people haven’t heard before so that they look knowledgeable and informative – and then retreat to a totally bogus non-committal conclusion so that they can please everyone, and not anger the religious people who actually think the flood was a historic event.
First of all, it’s obvious non-sense that the annual flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates or an ice-cap could cause a global flood. Maybe she meant that those things could’ve caused a local flood that was greatly exaggerated, or maybe she was looking for anything that could superficially justify “we know for sure that there was the possibility that the world could have flooded”. Based on the editing of the clip, I had to wonder if management forced them to go back and sound more conciliatory towards global-flood believers. (I can only imagine the kind of hate mail they would receive if they actually said that Noah’s Ark was fiction.)
How do we know that Noah’s Ark didn’t happen?
There are already a bunch of arguments out there about Noah’s Ark that I’m not going to discuss because they’ve already been discussed to death. They include:
– Could a person in 2350 BC build a wooden ship 450 feet long that was sea-worthy? (The only known wooden ship approaching this size was the USS Wyoming. It was 450 feet long, completed in 1909, and the water tended to flex the planks in high seas so water seeped in and had to be pumped out.)
– Could Noah fit all the world’s animals on that boat, including space for food?
Instead, I think the bigger problems for Noah’s Ark are:
(1) The Bible goes into quite a bit of detail about ancestral lineages, and how old people were when they gave birth to the subsequent generation. This allows us to calculate backwards and figure out when the global flood supposedly happened. According to the Bible, the date of the global flood ends up being around 2350 BC. This date is simply not realistic. Ancient civilizations go back earlier than that. Egypt, for example, has a series of dynasties leading back to 3000 BC. (See my post “Creationism versus Archeology”.)
(2) If the 2350 date were correct, then human civilization would’ve had to undergo an extreme population explosion in the millenium following the flood. According to Biblical sources, there would have been millions of Jews leaving Egypt, so assuming a global population of 40 million around that time (~1350 BC), and comparing that to global population estimates later in history (an estimated 200+ million by 0 AD), would require an incredibly high population growth between 2350 BC and 1350 BC (5,000,000 fold increase in 1,000 years), and a much lower population growth after 1350 BC – usually less than 5 fold population growth within any 1,000 year period between 1350 BC and 1800 AD.
(3) The distribution of animals is not what we would expect if there were a global flood killing all life. If all life was limited to the top of a mountain in the Middle East in 2350 B.C., then how to explain the distribution of animals across the world? All the kangaroos on the Ark went to Australia? How did the animals get to the Americas? If they crossed via an ice-bridge in the Bering Strait, then the Americas should be limited to animals that are warm blooded and capable of traveling hundreds of miles across snow. This means no reptiles, no spiders, etc. Yet, the Amazon contains a wide variety of animal biodiversity. And why didn’t American desert animals stay behind in the deserts of the Old World? (See related post: “Creationism versus Animal Biodiversity”)
(4) Genetic evidence shows that human beings are far to genetically diverse to be descended from a single family in 2350 B.C. If Noah’s Ark were true, then all men alive today would’ve gotten their Y-chromosomes from Noah, and all human mitochondrial DNA would come from Noah’s wife and the three daughter-in-laws. Studies of the human Y-Chromosome show that you’d need far more than 4,300 years to accumulate that many mutations. Human beings could not be descended from a single male in 2350 B.C. What the studies show, instead, is that, in order to explain the number of mutations in the human Y-Chromosome, you have to allow for roughly 60,000-90,000 years. Similarly, human mitochondrial DNA requires roughly 160,000 years to accumulate that many mutations — showing that Eve could not have lived 6,000 years ago as the Bible says. (See Carl Zimmer’s article on Y-Chromosome Adam and Mitochondrial Eve.)
(5) If the entire human race were repopulated from a single family in the Middle-East in 2350 B.C., then we would expect the highest levels of genetic diversity to be in the Middle East. Populations who moved to Africa, Europe, Australia, etc would carry only a subset of that genetic diversity with them. In reality, the highest levels of human genetic diversity occur in Africa. For example, the Khosian (in South Africa) have some of the most diverse genetics. If the Bible predicted Noah’s Ark landing on Mt. Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, genetic diversity would at least align with the Biblical story. Unsurprisingly, humans appear to have arisen in the same location as our closest genetic relatives – chimpanzees and gorillas. (See National Geographic’s Genographic Project, which uses genetics to trace the migration paths of humans over the past 200,000 years.)
I suppose young earth creationists could side-step issues two and three by invoking miracles. For example, they can say that God miraculously allows a population explosion, and God miraculously moved animals back to their original locations (after miraculously moving them to the Ark in the first place — afterall, it’s not reasonable to suggest that Noah gathered all the world’s animals). Flood-believers already have to invoke a whole series of miracles (God sending enough rain to cover the earth, God talking to Noah, God removing the excess water from the earth after the flood, etc). Of course, if you add enough divine miracles to your story, nothing is “unreasonable”. However, it would be odd to say the other three can be cleared up by invoking a miracle — it’s not understandable why God would want to do a miracle in those cases (unless he was trying to deliberately obscure that a flood happened).
So genetics and archeology show that Noah’s Ark didn’t happen. Some Christians, Jews, and Muslims might suggest that Noah’s Ark did happen, but it was more than 4,400 years ago (i.e. the Old Testament is wrong about that detail). It still causes problems because you’d have to push back the date tens of thousands of years in order to allow for that level of human genetic diversity.
Check out what other cultures have recorded about The Flood. A statistical analysis of these presents some interesting results. Also, The notion of a “Vapor Canopy” (that might have caused a flood) based on Genesis is contradicted in the same chapter in which it appears. Check out this discrepancy and a lot of other biblical misconceptions and mysteries in
http://www.eloquentbooks.com/ManAndHisPlanet.html
Every time I come to this site I am amazed at the things that are being discussed. I mean, the fantastic things that some people hold dear are absolutely ludicrous. Of course no one built a giant boat with two of every animal. Of course the entire earth didn’t flood. Of course people didn’t routinely live outrageously long lives. Anyone with an ounce of common sense can see how that flies in the face of any and all empirical evidence. It simply doesn’t make any sense, and deep down, everyone knows it isn’t true. The fact that these supposed events need to be debunked in print at all says a lot about the damage a widespread belief in magic has done to the human race. People everywhere need to wake up. It is complete and total nonsense, and it is really annoying. Tiny – Thanks for fighting the (impossibly uphill) battle for me and many others who hold similar beliefs (based on fact!).
Yet the question is not about faith, hope, or God; the question is if Noah’s Ark is real and has been found. Like Atlantis, the ever-elusive Ark will continue to be “found” by those looking for it—whether it exists or not.
Which facts? Please, list them. Then list your sources.
Take your time:)
It really shows just how ignorant of history the bible’s authors were. It’s really amazing that anyone can entertain such an idea these days, though.
Add in the fact that, even though myth of floods occur in many cultures, they are no means universal. Even just limiting it to myths that detail origin stories (such as previous worlds being destroyed and only a few people surviving), they vary between floods and fires, two things that primitive people had problems with. That’s just going off memory. Talk Origins has a fairly detailed listing.
all flood material: http://www.talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-flood.html
flood stories: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/flood-myths.html
(the site was incredibly slow to load, so YMMV)
There was some interesting material on the Ark posted at FRDB (formerly the II forums): Here is one:
http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=53338&highlight=ark+naval+paper
We had some interesting discussions about creatures, reproduction, windows and ventilation, food, etc, plus all the vapor canopy+ fun. Even thermodynamics and the burning of the entire earths atmosphere. A simple search can lead to quite a few threads on the subject, if anyone is interested.
I think that people read the Bible and think of it all literally. They think if it says the sea was split it literally was. The Bible is an interpretation in my opinion. So maybe something similar to the ark happened but not exactly how it is written. You gotta have a little faith in some things and sometimes things are unexplainable.
My RE teacher says that things like this may not have actually happened but they may be some kind of symbollic representation of a higher idea *yawn*. one of the things creationists overlook is that when they decide to leave all the fish in the water because they can swim. all the freshwater fish (and amphibians etc.) would die. all the saltwater fish would also die because the concentration levels would be different. oops. God just wiped out several trillion innocent animals.
Good point about how we interpret, but once you start ‘interpreting’, starting at Genesis, and working your way slowly through the books of the Bible, through the plagues on Egypt, the wonders in the Exodus and wilderness wanderings, the taking of the Canaanite cities, and so on, you have to invent an incredible number of ‘interpretations’ as you go through miracle after miracle, event, after event, through to the life of Jesus and the miracles He performed, through all the hundreds of prophecies He fulfilled, until your ‘interpretations’ form a rather impressive body of work about the same size as the Bible, so what, in the end, have you proved? Possibly that its easier to believe the Bible than to try to interpret it away.
Are you seriously considering the possibilities of a global flood and a cargo vessel that might survive it, or are you simply looking for any excuse to try and discredit the Bible? If Bible-bashing is important to you, it seems like maybe you should address the actual text, rather than arbitrary interpretations.
On the other hand, try to remember that history IS interpretation, and the real debate here is one of trust and authority: “Religious Authority” vs “Scientific Authority”. A direct approach to that debate would seem less disingenuous, don’t you think? Clarify the issues, please. Simplify. Try to be careful when lumping all of your distrustful feelings toward ‘religion’ together with the notion of Scripture; and be careful when lumping all of your grand feelings toward ‘science’ together with the interpretation of whatever current paradigm it labors under. Pay attention to the distinctions, people!
Creationism does not = Christianity. Religion does not = Magic. Empirical evidence does not = proof. Biblical interpretation does not = Faith.
I was raised in a family (and Christian school) which believed in the literal interpretation of Genesis and the belief that the global flood was a historical event. The fact that some Christians don’t believe in a literal flood does not mean I cannot address the idea (still held by many Christians) that a global flood actually happened.
Take a look at the answers to this YahooAnswers question, if you don’t believe me that many Christians continue to believe in a literal flood story:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081229111627AASR6WU
Most of those responses agree that a flood happened. A few quotes:
“Yes, I believe it. Jesus did too. At Matt. 24:37-39, he said: ““When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day. 38 In those days before the flood, the people were enjoying banquets and parties and weddings”
“Sure. Why not? Just because you do not understand something doesn’t necessarily make it untrue”
“I believe in everything what Bible says even if it is weird or immposible. But remember, in God’s eyes nothing is immposible. God can do everything.”
“Yes, I do believe that it rained for 40 days and 40 nights, and yes, I believe that Noah not only built an ark where there has never been rain before, and yes, I do believe he not only did that, but he preached righteousness for the 120 years that it took him to build the ark- Remember who created the weather. Not man, but the infinite, creator God.”
“You’re asking Christians yeah? Well is it in the Bible? Then you have your answer. True Followers of Christ follow His Word.”
I wonder how Christians who don’t believe in the flood deal with Matt. 24:37-39, where Jesus mentions the flood and Noah as if they are historical events. Or the lineage of Jesus in Luke, which includes Noah.
> the real debate here is one of trust and authority: “Religious Authority” vs “Scientific Authority”
I reject that argument because its fundamental premise is to simply setup two “authorities” against each other, which leads to questions like “whom do you trust — God or man?” It sidesteps the real arguments and problems in favor of a kind of “argument from authority” – where we are simply supposed to choose between religious and secular “authorities”.
Well summarily rejecting an argument certainly is a simple way to win one.
Global flood – sure I believe it. How else can you explain the fact that all over the world there are mult-layers of sedimentary rock containing the remains of billions of dead things, plants and animals of all sizes, many of them ripped and shredded, millions of sea shells still closed – which indicates rapid burial, and folded strata, which is not cracked which indicates it was folded while still wet and pliable, which means it was laid down rapidly and folded before it could harden, and many other indicators of a global flood which are easy to find if you go to the right websites, rather than the muddy ones where only skeptics like to air their opinions.
The Old Testament is an account given to moses by God after the exodus from Egypt. Moses, a meek man is describing to his Clan the history of The Chosen race. A hostory with names familiar to the clans. Geneology and family and there history Was as imprtant as anything to the ancient Hebrews.
HumanKind was created on the 6th day. The Chosen race was a specific race that would eventually beget the messiah or Christ. Moses Account is to the Hebrews of the History of the Chosen Race. The secret missed is that to the Hebrews, all other races were in many places of the old testament called beasts. The Ark inhabitants were Noah and his family, whose decendents in that time were recognizable to the hebrews, as well as other races. to think that other races came from the hebrew line is a false understanding.
we agree about what tiny frog says because in gods eye every thing can be seen and besides respect what’s the command of god.thanks .
i think that the flood was a local thing. to them the whole world was probably that region in which they lived in. there were not that many people around then.
from adam on to then, they were in a sense relatives and im sure stuck close together as they grew and expanded out. not just packing up by themselves and just tracking the globe and setting up elsewhere.
look at all the different races of people. if you have two people of same race you get same race.
and in the day it mentions nephlim were always there , indicating they were before them so clearly there were people already there.
you had adam & eve then cain and abel – when cain killed his brother and was cast out why did god need to put up a sign about not killing him or those who did would be “punished wrose than cain” makes no sense unless there were peol already there.
then it says that cin went to i think nod or some town. where did it come from?
so many things one has to say mracles did it but tats just starts to sound stupid after having to continue to use that to justify your thinking.
i’ve seen what the bible shows as to the decendants of adam & eve and it really wouldn’t be that many people that the whole world would have been filled.
so why th eneed to flood the whole earth? why is there no evidence?
to say it was a miracle and a miricale covered it up is goofey.
adam & eve were then jews and placed on earth with other races , is that what someone is saying?
Concerning point (2) If a population of 8 people increased by less than 16% every 20 years, from 2350 BC to 10 BC you get over 200 million people.
My personal interpretation is that the Bible contains a generation gap.
It starts out with G-d creating Adam, the first man (the first intellectually capable Homo Sapien). Then Cain kills Abel and is afraid of going out to where the ‘others’ can kill him. Here I figure others refers to the less advanced human species. Eventually we get Noah- 1656 years after Adam evolved, so still like 100,000 BC. During the next presentation of generations, I believe there’s a huge generation gap. That would allow us to place Abraham a few centuries after 2000BC. To account for it, I would like to point out how each of the names of the descendants seems to have a symbolic meaning. For example, Pegem represents the ‘division of peoples’, which I suppose we could place around 70,000 BC. ‘Beget’ would refer to indirect birth. If at 30 years A begets B, then A gives birth to whoever’s lineage will lead to B. This might have been clearer in the language of the time (or I like to believe that Moses or whoever wrote the Torah ‘saw’ what was happening and recorded it. The ‘beget’ thing might just be how the author knew how to express what he was ‘seeing’).
Then we have to question the plausibility of the Flood taking place in 100,000 BC. Many of species (living in the water) could have survived just fine (of course one can debate the salinity of the water and how that killed off certain species). Some land insects could have stayed underground (although a flood like that would have eroded a bunch of ground, so let’s just put them on the boat). Now suppose that the boat ended up somewhere in Africa, where life seems to have began.
Here’s where I run into problems: Traces of animals are found in every country, and there countries were pretty distinct 100,000 years ago. For two kangaroo-like animals to go from Australia to the Ark and from Africa back to Australia, it would have taken divine intervention. Quickly moving waters, some type of physical ‘boat’, etc. Rapidly moving waters could be possible, seeing as some crazy shit must have happened with the waters. In addition, there are other times where scientists wonder how the hell could this animal have gotten from here to there. There are possibilities.. that’s all I’m saying.
I’ve been looking at the Torah critically recently, especially with respect to Noah’s Ark, but I’ve found that science just doesn’t prove it impossible.
I just have one question: We need to remember that we cannot switch paradigms when thinking about complex things like this. We need to consider ALL the sides. Also, if one is to think from the paradigm of “god does exist and we can have faith in him,” then it is essential to remember that it isn’t about our human understanding and how we can construct devices, like scientific reasoning, to explain the supernatural in a convention that makes us comfortable. This is fucked up and wrong.
I mean, consider this: If God made man in his image, then how can we expect ourselves, only as small pieces of some grand creator, to fully understand how he works and operates? Imagine a child watching his father build an intricate watch. Though the child does not entirely understand the intricacies of the process, he understands why it is happening and what the watch will be for. And this watch, lets say, is being made for the child and for his betterment, as he’ll need it to tell the time to go to school when he gets old enough to go, and old enough to understand why the watch is important.
Sheesh, and you tell Christians we have to open up our minds? Why not open your minds and hearts and just ask God to reveal himself to you… don’t close off yourself to learning something you never thought you could because you were afraid of what the answer would be!
Great info, though, its coming in handy for a teaching I’m working on. You did some good research.
Ugh, I started that out wrong. I meant to say, “I have just one comment,” instead of, “I just have one question…” my bad.
Amos-
I enjoyed the part about not being able to fully understand how G-d operates.
I would argue, however, that there’s nothing wrong with constructing devices to help us understand religion in the context of science. We all have a natural desire to find consistency among our beliefs. It’s pretty harmless.
Problems arise when people study science subjectively in order to appease religion (i.e. we found Noah’s ark!), or when somebody outright rejects scientific findings because of religious doctrine.
Even so, who are we to say that the universe didn’t begin 5000 years ago? For all we know, the universe, with its past and present, could have instantaneously been put into place 5000 years ago (I think it’s bullshit, but some people believe it) and we wouldn’t know the difference.
Like we have faith in religion, we have faith in science. We take for granted that truth is what our senses observe. We take for granted that scientific research brings us closer and closer to the ‘truth’.
I plan to be a physicist, and I expect the next couple generations of physics to shape my understanding of religion. It seems perfectly fine to me
I’ve read the original article as well as the responses, and I must say that almost every single one makes sense if looked at with an open mind. I myself am… Agnostic, I suppose you’d have to call me, with a strong bend toward “logical”, scientific thinking. It is my OPINION that the Noah’s Ark myth is simply that: a myth. However, I have come across strong arguments to the contrary.
For instance, the fact that the Ark could have easily held all of the animals. I did the math myself, and, given the average size of the animals, how many there were, as well as the grandiose size of the Ark itself, it is irrefutably possible. The problem comes when asking how the animals got to Noah in the first place. To say that God made it so is a bit of a cop-out. The Bible clearly says that the animals came to Noah of their own volition, but this is just not possible. A lot of them would have had to cross oceans to do this, something which most of them could not have possibly done. I’m not one to poo-poo the beliefs of others, but sometimes science trumps religion/mysticism/what-have-you. Transversely, sometimes the opposite happens.
Ultimately, belief in the Ark and it’s myth comes down to the one word that makes me the angriest: FAITH. At it’s core, faith is a beautiful thing. The ability to believe something even though physical evidence proves it to be false, (or at the very least, improbable), is something I sometimes envy. Wouldn’t life be easier if all your questions were answered by that one word? Unfortunately, most of us, even those who claim to have complete faith in something, (in this case, the Bible), cannot be pacified by the simple answer. We cannot just blindly say: Sure. Why not? If the Bible says it, it must be true.
That, to me, is why faith is so dangerous. Faith has caused more death and destruction than logic: The Crusades, Witch hunting, 9/11. What can we take from these examples? Well, I, for one, take the idea that faith breeds chaos. Would the Pagans have continued to live in peace had one man not claimed to be the Son of God? Most likely; because the senseless slaughter would not have happened in the name of One True God. Would the World trade center be here today had some Islamic extremists not had FAITH that their God wanted infidels destroyed? Probably. A quick disclaimer: I said extremists, this does not mean I blame Islam for what happened. I blame zealots, same as the Christian Crusades.
Since this has gone on for far too long, I will close. It is important to strike a clear balance between faith and logic. Faith is good, in doses. It gives us hope and a sense of what may be in store for us. Logic is also good, as it tells us how things work, and whether or not to place our faith in something that is improbable, if not impossible.
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Faith is not blind. It is based on evidence. Irrefutable evidence. Everyone, be they Creationists or old earth big bang cosmologists, bases their beliefs on evidence. The same evidence is available to all, and people draw their own inferences.
No one who has true faith in the God of the Bible has ever murdered anyone.
All your examples of mass murder are straw men. These were not followers of Christ. Invoking the name of Christ or God does not give you His authority. Jesus said, If you love me, you’ll keep my commandments.
If there was no global flood, and if there is not enough water to cover the earth, why are so many marine fossils so high up on Mount Everest, and on such high elevations of so many mountains around the globe? There is enough water today to cover the earth a mile deep given certain seismic, and volcanic activity. If the trenches were closed, and the highest mountains lowered the earth would flood. Why could this not have happened? The craters and disheveled crust of the earth cry out cataclysmic events in our past. The eruption of Mount Saint Helens was 18 times smaller than Krakatoa. It laid down a mini Grand Canyon, the beginnings of a petrified forest in a few days. It released the energy of 20,000 atomic bombs, and was considered a very small volcano. Yellowstone could blow any day and would wipe out life on this continent in a few days.
God is a God of science. Natural occurrences happening at just the right time are often considered miracles (i.e. the storm that hindered the Spanish Armada) Man’s paltry understanding of the intricacies of DNA, molecular biology, and on and on, boil down to statements of faith such as life springing from non life (evolution), or “everything beginning from nothing” (big bang), which in my opinion is far more ridiculous than a global flood.
Many believe the ark was impossible based on the fact that nautical engineers of the 19th or 20th century could not build a wooden vessel of that size. Well they also could not have built the pyramids or carved, moved and set the 500 ton stones in the Andes Mountains. Those “primitive” cultures were able to do many things considered impossible by modern standards.
There is a fly in your ointment.
The marine fossils on Mt. Everest are 400 million years old. They were not deposited by Noah’s flood. The fossils are there due to plate tectonics. It is quite easy to verify this on the internet or at your local library.
Using hyperbole to win a scientific argument isn’t logical. If your religion isn’t logical, then you should closely examine your religion and why you believe it.
Far too many honest believers have been kept from the broader meaning of Genesis.
Peter teaches a “perished” world, which we can better relate to Genesis 1, 8. That world could have been driven by higher atmospheric pressure of different gasses.
A calculation based on conservation of orbital angular momentum showed a closed shell (Oort Cloud) blown away by re-combination of gases formed by “light” energy. Hydrogen and Oxygen mixed return to water. Rainy days as earth centered the broken atmosphere makes sense.
The assembly of what are now planets orbited at 7 AU.
The year was 18.5 Earth years, challenging begat times and questioning how the hereditary data could have been retained through the “PERISHMENT”.
The approximate 10 billion Earth-year blank period before the Genesis 1 creation showed inability of the one who would be like the Most High to create. The very good was usurped based on a lie.
Our world is promoted as God’s creation. It is not, however beautiful and worthy of love it may appear.
I too love debating Noah’s Ark because it is so ludicrous if taken as a literal structure / event… Yes, the second you say “God did this,” you cannot refute it, hence end of discussion. Here’s my standard reply… IF God was going to perform the plethora of miracles it would take to “float” the Ark myth (pun intended), why didn’t he just wipe out the human race other than Noah’s family. You’re talking one miracle as opposed to MANY MANY miracles? Was God pissed at all the animals in the world as well? The genetic diversity argument is GREAT and applies to animals as well! It’s hard for me to accept how many otherwise intelligent and nice people accept the story without question. They say I need faith. I say, there is a difference between faith and BLIND faith. Heaven’s Gate followers had blind faith!
How do you keep a species that has a shorter life span than forty days .how do you collect anacondas via the amazon ,fresh water species ?.and birds ? and feed animals that eat other animals to survive bing goes the two by two theory
pandas and gorillas treble there own weight in food the logistics are mind boggling how you know male from female ?
opps homos .How many species of just butterfly ,fresh flowers for humming birds ,common sense prevails and some of the smaller dinosaurs ,albatross .cormorants food how do you know what to feed and when imagine two elephant on the rampage or rhino ,the aged kimohto lizards and there long life and how many we have today do the maths and perpetuating the species ,it would take at least four of today’s supertankers would be for the basics ,a wooden vessel would break in rough seas basic engineering ,how many people to collect all the beings …………mind boggling ,disease and nocturnal beings and the cleaning up
ask a zookeeper the logistics? ? and what about the moa and kiwis from new zealand sorry chaps its bollocks
@pip stanger,
If a species has a shorter lifespan than forty days, it must reproduce on the ship. If an animal needs to eat its weight in animals, you must have some extra animals that come on merely to serve the purpose of being food, grasses and plants that either were brought on or washed onto the boat. If you say none of the freshwater species could have survived, I’m sure some saltwater ones could undergo evolution and eventually give rise to freshwater ones.
I think that the idea is generally that the animals gravitated to their boat on their own, via thoughts and desires that G-d placed in their heads, perhaps via divinely inspired coincidences like an animal hopping on a tiny piece of land that travels miles over the water. You also have to factor in the fact that the animals (humans included) were ancestors of the species that we observe today, so there would be plenty of time to spread across the globe.
If one is to believe that the Flood occurs exactly as written, then G-d must play a role, and if one is supposing that G-d plays a role, He has created the present, past, and future simultaneously in such a way that all these ‘coincidences’ and ‘random thoughts’ would arise.
So, what did all the carnivores eat when they got off the boat? Were several others of the two by two species wiped out because no one packed an after-cruise lunch bag for the lions?
[…] Fact Or Fiction: Could Noah’s Ark Really Have Happened? – Tiny Frog […]
You must have faith in God, and believe the Bible! One day you too will know the answer.
Noah’s Ark is just another God “fear me or die” story! I’m not that smart and even I don’t buy it! This blog has lovely facts and so many times I say, I never thought of that! There is such a Christ movement in our country and these people seem so happy about hating! If there were a Jesus he would be like Obama! He would love about the minorities, the working class, the homos, and the atheists. 🙂
Good morning Sean –
You have evidently met some people who call themselves christians but aren’t behaving in a christian manner. Please don’t group us all together. If someone truly follows Jesus Christ they do not exhibit hate – and if they feel themselves heading in that direction they go back to the word of God and go to God in prayer to help them not deal in hatred. It is our human nature to sin, we are are sinners in need of salvation.
As for Obama – and any politician – I don’t know them personally and neither do you. Please don’t compare Obama or any man to Christ. And please don’t assume that republicans don’t care about the poor and democrats do, that’s a dangerous line of thought. I am a registered republican but I don’t call myself a republican. I am a christian, wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend and saved by grace. I believe in sharing what God has blessed me with and helping anyone God places in my path regardless of who they are. I just happen to believe that the church (christians, believers) should be helping the less fortunate and teaching them how to help themselves and that government isn’t responsible for people’s personal choices. I believe in personal accountability. I want to help the truly needy, not the lazy, but I also understand that Christ didn’t differentiate between the two so I help who I can and try not to judge. But I try not to enable them to continue making bad choices and to show them that hard work and effort are required in life. Alot – (but certainly not all!) of the democrats that I know don’t personally help the poor and needy – they just want the government to. Most republicans I know (but unfortunately not all!) help the poor and needy themselves with their own time and money – which is what Christ calls the church to do.
It takes faith to be a christian – faith in a God that created a world that is so complex that alot of very “smart” (in the world’s standard anyway) people haven’t figured out yet – chew on that for awhile. But I think it takes alot more faith (and stubborn refusal to submit to a loving God) to believe everything around you came from a “big bang” or from apes or whatever you choose to believe.
You believe in wind, right Sean? You believe wind exists, right? Well, I’d like you to send me a picture of it, prove to me what wind is exactly, what does it look like? You believe it’s there because you see it’s effect and you feel it. I see God’s effect all around me and I feel it in my heart. You can’t disprove that. I see the evil he talks about and the faith/love he talks about.
God never intended for us to be able to prove he exists. It’s all about faith and if you ever meet someone with true faith you will understand what true peace of mind is and see what that person accomplishs through faith.
I can’t convince anyone of God, I can only share my experience, God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are the only ones who can change a heart.
http://www.earthage.org/EarthOldorYoung/scientific_evidence_for_a_worldwide_flood.htm
[…] Fact Or Fiction: Could Noah’s Ark Really Have Happened? – Tiny Frog […]
Believe and all things are possible!!!! ! Look at the past 300 years of humans life on this planet and see what massive changes have occured !! See how GOD has allowed us to make great advances in medicine , communications , travel and so much more . Whole cultures who have move in a matter of years , or disappeared in short periods of recorded history and you don ‘t believe GOD could do all these things in a approximately 10,000 years earth span . Study more , read the bible , be less infulenced by those who create they’re own stories. Dna , babies , oxygen level in the wind you we don’t comprehend , perfect distance from the star(sun) that we would die , if closer to or farther away from watch out ,and so many other things that where created to function together properly .Please don’t consider this a story , or majic , or a lie but, a challenge to look closer at GODS miracles !! Peace at you brothers and sisters .PSALM 18:2
CRAIG
sorry craig no God, i believe it’s the scientific “snow ball effect”, once industry and technology got going it just picked up pace. also once the human brain evolved to the point of being able to figure stuff out and apply reason then it was basically down hill. and its only going to get better:) or worse depending on your philosophy lol
There is no doubt in my mind that there is no God. If there were, he would have to be made of something, for if he were made of nothing he wouldn’t exist. If God created everything in the universe, he couldn’t have possibly created the very stuff he is made of, therefore, this stuff must have always existed, also. This means, of course, that God didn’t create everything, and if the stuff he is made of didn’t need a creator, why would anything else?
Scientists from NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center and Columbia University have uncovered evidence that confirms there was once a massive flood in the northern hemisphere. According to their computer models, the flood occurred approximately 8,200 years ago and resulted in climate changes that decreased the temperature. Their report noted:
The last major abrupt climate change occurred at ~8.2 kiloyears before present (kyr) and is recorded in multiple proxy records across the Northern Hemisphere. Contemporaneously, glacial Lakes Agassiz and Ojibway catastrophically drained into the Hudson Bay, possibly delivering enough freshwater into the North Atlantic to affect the ocean circulation (LeGrande, et al., 2006, 103[4]:837).
Could this discovery be pointing back to the Noahic Flood?
Scientists had previously documented changes in isotope, aerosol, and methane levels—all of which pointed to a major cooling event. The group used a fully coupled atmosphere/ocean general circulation model in an effort to determine what could have caused the climate changes. Their computer model used a flow of water that was equal to between 25 and 50 times the flow of the Amazon River in twelve model runs that took more than a year to complete. While none of the scientists involved in this study would suggest that this data supports the idea of the global Flood they did indicate that the effects of this event were “clearly expressed” in Greenland and Ammersee, Germany. The scientists suggested this catastrophic flood was caused by retreating glaciers. Interestingly, they documented significant decreases in temperature in the northern hemisphere—something that creationists have long suspected would have occurred after the global Flood. Multiple evidences demonstrate that the Earth’s climate has changed, and fossil records indicate that the Earth was once covered with water. The logical conclusion that incorporates all of the available evidence is the global Flood—as recorded in the book of Genesis.
I assume you were referencing this article: http://www.apologeticspress.org/APPubPage.aspx?pub=1&issue=576&article=603
And this PNAS paper:
http://www.pnas.org/content/103/4/837.full
The problems I see with your interpretation:
(1) This event happened 8,200 years ago, not 4,300 years ago (as the Biblical history says).
(2) There’s nothing about a catastrophic flood in the PNAS paper. Apologetics press just seems to have inserted that. The PNAS paper mainly talks about climate change that was a result of melting glaciers and the effect that this has on water circulation (when freshwater and saltwater combine, stuff happens that can affect climate).
In short: there doesn’t seem to be much in the paper at all to support a global flood scenario. Just a small-scale dumping of freshwater into saltwater resulting in a temperature decline. (Don’t let the word “catastrophic” confuse you in the paper. It’s “catastrophic” in the same sense that Mt. St. Helens exploding is “catastrophic” – it’s still a local event, not a global one.)
“The last major abrupt climate change occurred at ≈8.2 kiloyears before present (kyr) and is recorded in multiple proxy records across the Northern Hemisphere (1). Contemporaneously, glacial Lakes Agassiz and Ojibway catastrophically drained into the Hudson Bay (2, 3), possibly delivering enough freshwater into the North Atlantic to affect the ocean circulation (4, 5). Modeling studies consistently indicate that freshwater pulses into the North Atlantic slow down North Atlantic Deep Water (NADW) formation”
Besides, I’ve heard creationists claim that the entire planet’s geography was altered by the flood (in order to explain how dinosaurs ended up being buried), and claiming that the continents drifted apart during the flood. Based on that assertion, any claims about pre-flood geography (e.g. talking about Lakes Agassiz and Ojibway or the Atlantic) would be rendered invalid.
It seems like Apologetics Press is really trying to stretch stuff into support of a global flood.
Please send me a copy of this to my email, I personally believe that the biblical tale of
Noah’s Ark was just that. A bogus fairy tale. Now I want to be envisioned as being
asthestic. I am deep down inside of my soul a very decent person. But I know deep
down inside, that there a spiritual existance out there, but not in heavenly sense or the
satanic one. This presence does not serve a benevenolent purpose, but a hideously
nefarious one. Please don’t get me wrong, I am not a bad guy. I am NOT a monster.
Stupid and me do not exist. I’m expressing how I personally feel about things.
Thank You
Jews / christian and Muslim are right to believe that the Noah’s ark with Allah’s will did happen. And it is right for all these religions to believe in them, just because you know of what you see and comprehend only, doesn’t mean this is the only thing that is possible. All 3 religions have stood the test of time and Insha-Allah will do so till God decides otherwise. But time and again the people who thought that the world contains only intellectual presence, have died with their ideas and thoughts without a trace. And the Almighty Allah knows best.
A scoffer is worth about as much as an ignorant man who has no intelligence and relies on what rubbish he was taught to believe in, and can not discern the truth among the lies given to him by other ignorant fools.
[…] Creationists Fight Over “Real” Noah’s Ark ”…two groups of creationists … each think they’ve found the real Noah’s Ark in the Ararat mountains — and they’re each accusing the other of producing fake evidence.” The Whole Silly Flood Story by Bob Riggins Problems with a Global Flood Why Isn’t “Flood Geology” Accepted Today? by Edward T. Babinski Creationist “Flood Geology” Vs Common Sense -Or Reasons why “Flood Geology” was abandoned in the mid-1800s by Christian men of science by Edward T. Babinski Order of the Geologic Column and Flood Geology by Edward T. Babinski WAS MT. ARARAT UNDERWATER? Compiled and written by Edward T. Babinski Sun Goes Down in Flames: The Jammal Ark Hoax by Jim Lippard Has Anyone Discovered Noah’s Ark? RON WYATT: ARE HIS CLAIMS BONAFIDE? by Bill Crouse The Search for Noah’s Ark Fact Or Fiction: Could Noah’s Ark Really Have Happened? – Tiny Frog […]