"The biblical account of Noah's Ark and the Flood is perhaps the most implausible story for fundamentalists to defend. Where, for example, while loading his ark, did Noah find penguins and polar bears in Palestine?" -Judith Hayes
I must start off with a warning that this will not be one of my most in-depth posts ever. For one thing, there's an incredible number of objections to be made as to the literal truth of the story of Noah's Ark. For another, I plan to revisit the topic later, so I'd prefer future posts not be entirely redundant. So today we'll look at the sorts of obvious issues one can find, without digging too deeply.
The story of Noah and the Flood is widely known, but I'll summarize here for those who don't recall it clearly. Mankind had become "evil" in God's opinion. He wanted a chance for a do-over, so he decided to kill everyone and everything on the planet in a worldwide flood. He decided Noah was a good guy, so he decided to let him, his wife, their three sons, and the sons' wives live. He went to Noah and told him his plan, and instructed him to build an ark to allow his family and all the animals to survive the flood. As best as I can tell, plants aren't mentioned, other than ones used as food. Noah did as he was told, and over the course of about 80 years built the ark God had given him the designs for. There's some lack of clarity on how many animals were included when it came time to load up. Suffice it to say there were at least 2, and often 7 (or maybe 14?), of each animal. Once the ark was built and loaded, God caused the rain to fall for 40 days and 40 nights, until it covered the whole earth. After about a year, things were dry enough for them to finally leave the ark. They went forth and multiplied, and thus the Earth was repopulated by Noah's family and the animals he saved in his ark.
So the obvious objections. As the quote at the beginning would points out, one of the most obvious problems is just how Noah managed to get ALL the different species into his ark. Since the Christians who are likely to take this story completely literally are also those most likely to insist that evolution isn't real, presumably all the species diversity we see in the world today must be accounted for by the animals saved on the ark. According to this article, current estimates of the number of species on Earth range from 5 million to 100 million. Even taking into account the fact that the vast majority of these are very, very small, that's still an incredible number of critters to fit on one relatively small boat. Not to mention trying to keep track of them all. How did Noah know he hadn't forgotten any of them? How did he collect any marine animals in the middle of a desert? How did he provide for the unique needs of each of them? And of course, how did he keep the carnivores from eating the animals they normally preyed upon?
Along those lines we have the question of feeding all these animals for an entire year. The food requirements for just the herbivores would have been astronomical. And many of them were carnivores. Were there actually more animals included than originally specified, in order to feed them? But in order for there to be enough meat for them, most of the "food" animals would have to be kept alive for a large portion of the year. Meaning even MORE food is required. The ark, already too small to hold the animals themselves, is even more woefully inadequate for holding the thousands of tons of food needed to feed them.
Then, of course, there's the need for water. For the first 40 days, one could argue, the rain would provide all the water they could need. But how did he provide enough clean, drinkable water for so many animals for the better part of a year? We've gone from one ark to needing an armada to provide for all the animals and their needs.
Mark Twain, in his Letters From the Earth, makes some even more interesting points with regards to the survival of all the parasites, bacteria, viruses, etc. For of course, for mankind to still be afflicted with all of the diseases we now see, they had to be saved as well. As this site puts it, all of Noah's family would have to serve "as living hosts for viruses, bacteria, fungi, and other microorganisms capable of producing pathologically based ailments in humans. A population of eight obviously had no chance to survive this fatal concoction of illnesses. If everyone had gone onboard disease-free, the microorganisms would have nowhere to thrive. Likewise, the animals carrying their own specific parasitic problems could not have realistically survived such turmoil." And even if this were a less difficult scenario to have been carried out, why would God have wanted to save all the pathogens?
These are just a few of the many, many issues with the beloved story of Noah's Ark and the Flood. I'll discuss some of them at a later time, but surely these alone make it clear what an incredibly unlikely story it really is.
Check out this site for a much more thorough explanation why this story just isn't possible.
From the book 'Answers' by Ken Ham
ReplyDeleteAnd every living thing of all flesh you shall bring two of every sort into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female (Genesis 6:19).
In the book Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study, creationist John Woodmorappe suggest that, at most, 16,000 animals were all that were needed to preserve the created kinds that God brought into the Ark. The ark did not need to carry every kind of animal- Nor did God command it. It carried only air-breathing, land dwelling animals, creeping things, and winged animals such as birds. Aquatic life (fish, whales, etc) and many amphibious creatures could have survived in suffcient numbers outside the Ark. This cuts down signifcantly the total number of animals that needed to be on board. Another factor which greatly reduces the space requirements is the fact that the tremendous variety in species we see today did not exist in the days of Noah. Only the parent "kinds" of the species were required to be on board in order to repopulate the earth. For example, only two dogs were needed to give rise to all the dog species that exist today.
Creationist estimates for the maximum number of animals that would be necessary to come on board the Ark have ranged a few thousand to 35,000, but they may be as few as two thousand if the biblical kind is approximately the same as the modern family classification.
Noah wouldn't have taken the largest animals onto the ark; it is more likely he took juveniles aboard the ark to repopulate the earth after the flood was over. These younger animals also require less space, less food, and have less waste.
Using a short cubit of 18 inches for the Ark to be conservative , Woodmorappe's conclusion is that "less than half of the cumulative area of the Ark's three decks need to have been occupied by the animals and their enclosures." this meant there was plenty of room for fresh food, water, and even many more people.
Here's one example: more than 200 different breeds of dogs exist today, from the miniature poodle to the St. Bernard- all of which have descended from the original dog "kind" (as have the wolf, dingo, etc) many other types of animals- cat kind, horse kind, cow kind, etc.- gave similarly been naturally and selectively bred to achieve the wonderul variation in species we have today. God "programmed" this variety into the generic code of all animals- even humankind! God also made it impossible for the basic "kinds" of animals to breed and reproduce with each other. For example, cats and dogs cannot breed to make a new type of creature. This is by God's design, and it is one fact that makes evolution impossible.
Dear Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteI would first like to address the idea of the animals on Noah's ridiculously large ark; I will then get to addressing the ridiculously large ark itself.
Let us first address the idea of a creationist scientist, and the absurdity of that pseudo-scientific crap that it is. Creationist Scientists are not scientists in the least, they are instead religious fundamentalists who try (and to true scientists fail) to stretch facts to fit biblical stories. They do not carry out experiments or studies to prove such events, for if they did then they would find out that their religious theory cannot in fact be supported by any data they could collect. It's much the same as Crypto zoologists trying to prove the existence of the Chuppacabra with fuzzy pictures and sounds of deer mating. It's absurd.
Moving from that to the theory that 2000 or so, give or take a couple more thousand, animals could even coexist upon a ship in harmony for as long as they would have needed. And please do not feed me the lines that they were separated, or that God willed them to all get along. If that were the cause God could will them all to have gills and survive in the water as the marine animals apparently did. No something would have gotten out and gotten eaten, and chaos would ensue. Not to mention the disease some of those animals carry, which would transfer, making others ill and possibly killing many. And the thought that just two of one "kind" could then produce all the species we have to day is insane. Two wolves, or dogs of any kind would not, in such short a time produce the hundreds of thousands of different species and breeds we have today. Dogs, foxes, hyenas, dingoes, wolves along with many others are quite closing related; so you mean to tell me they all came from just two individuals. Likely story I'm sure. That aside, please let's make our way onto the boat shall we.....
The longest wooden ship in modern history was around 300 feet long, reinforced with steel and still leaky as hell. Noah's Ark was to be around 450 feet long, not reinforced with anything, and built over 80 years. Ever heard of termites??? So in as many years of construction as it took him, his ship was never eating or munched on my any other critter ever, it never got rained on, never warped, never have *anything* happen to it structurally and was completely sound at the time it was called into use?? Also, please consider the sheer weight of such a massive ship...from a builder who had absolutely no knowledge of shipbuilding or anything nautical, therefore no clue how to build things correctly so that they would float. A ship that size would sink as soon as it began its journey; and that's not even taking into account the hundreds of thousands of pounds added by the animals. That's just the beginning of the foolishness that is this story.
Let me close by stating that if you plan to say that this was all by God's design and he willed it as such and therefore it is all a miracle....well then why didn't he just will away all the bad people and save everyone the trouble?? Also, if it is all a miracle and you must have faith to believe, then stop trying to *prove* it happened and just stick with, It's a miracle. Anyway, that's my piece...please, please feel free to reply to anything I have here above mentioned.
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteTo begin with, you end with the statement that evolution is impossible. Yet how could you possibly claim that the literally millions of species currently present in the world descended from at most, what, 35,000 so called “kinds” without evolution? Just because animals are in the same Family, which you say is approximately the same as your “kind,” doesn’t mean they can breed. Not only would they have had to have evolved from those supposed parent pairs, they would have required significantly more time (many thousands, if not millions of years, not just 4,000+), as stated by joanna.
I’m also hoping you have some knowledge of the original language that I’m not privy to, because otherwise I can’t understand where you get your, “The ark did not need to carry every kind of animal- Nor did God command it.” My understanding of, “Of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark.” (Genesis 6:19) would be that “all flesh” means all animals. Perhaps I’m wrong. But even so, how then can you explain, “every thing that is in the earth shall die.” (Genesis 6:17)? This certainly seems, to me at least, to say that everything will die, not just the species that aren’t properly represented in the ark.
Not to mention that it’s beyond impossible to explain how all the marine animals (and apparently many amphibious creatures) are supposed to survive in conditions completely hostile to them. Saltwater fish can hardly be expected to survive in the significantly reduced salinity of the water of the flood, while freshwater fish would die in the increased salinity. The pressure at the lowest depths, where many, many species live, would be increased to the point that none could have the slightest hope of survival. The temperatures of the waters would also be incredibly hot (assuming the volcanic activity necessary to justify the creationists’ claims that the Flood was responsible for most of the geologic evidence we see today), or cold, if the volcanic activity was not present. Either way, few if any marine animals (and even fewer amphibians) would have had any hope of survival.
Then, of course, is the question of whether taking juveniles (or even eggs, when applicable, dinosaurs, perhaps?) is a viable way of reducing the demand for food and the resultant waste. The rate of survival for the average juvenile animal is quite low, sometimes as low as 20%, for these animals in their ideal environments. Expecting every single one to survive in the dark, cramped, airless ark for over a year is highly unrealistic. Plus, how could Noah be sure they were all fertile? Or that the eggs contained one male, and one female? (I’m not even going to go into the question of animals that have different genders at different stages of their lives, or those that require the presence of competing mates to be fertile, or ones like bees that don’t mate in standard male/female pairs.) And honestly, the reduced demand for food and the leftover waste would probably still be well beyond the capacity of the ark to carry or Noah and his family to deal with.
I notice you ignore the issues of bacteria, viruses, other pathogens, etc. completely. If you’re willing to concede that you have no response, that’s fine by me.
Also, please note what joanna had to say about answering all objections with the catch-all “God did it.” If you want that to be the answer, that’s fine. But please stop trying to argue that it is, in fact, scientifically reasonable to argue the literal truth of Genesis. One cannot have it both ways.