Five questions about Noah's Ark which I hope the literalists can help me with?

Most of your questions are answered on this page and you can do a site search to find the others.

http://www.answersingenesis.org/HOME/AREA/faq/noah...

Get Answers: Noah’s Ark

The utter absurdity of some of these responses is , frankly, mind-blowing. Is it really that difficult to look at such an utterly impossible story and recognize it for the religious fable that it is? This doesn't lessen the value of the story at all, but to try and rationalize its legitimacy with nonsensical hypotheses, and outright lunacy is tantamount to committing intellectual suicide. Do you people even read the responses you're giving?

Since there are absolutely no rational answers from the standpoint of someone that likely views rationality as a tool of the devil, I'll pretend like I'm someone that actually uses their brain but previously believed the story of the ark and give you 5 rational answers to your 5 questions....

1)That's a good point, hadn't thought of it that way. Even if the plants could survive such a long stretch of submersion, obviously an influx of salt water would have killed virtually everything but mangroves, coconuts, and a few sea grasses.

2)Another fine point, what would they have been eating while they were waiting for these plants to grow anyways....?

3)Good call. If there were any predators at all on the ark (and there must have been for them to exist today) I'd bet at least 90% of the herbivores would have been rendered genetically extinct within a month or so.....the predators wouldn't have to kill both moose for moose to become extinct, just one of them.

4)Hmmm, or where did they come from in the first place. The amount of water needed to flood the earth to that depth would be great indeed! The idea that it was held in a magic envelope in space doesn't work....it would block out far to much sunlight as water vapor, and isn't water vapor an incredibly powerful greenhouse gas as well? Something like 20 times worse than CO2 at trapping heat....the planet would have been somewhere between 200 and 350 degrees if that was true.

5) Insects are a good point; I've also always wondered about the freshwater fish and amphibians. For many of these even a mild influx of salt water would be almost instantly leathal....did Noah build aquariums as well? How about all of the non-motile seashore creatures? Was Noah out there for months before the ark left with a clam rake? I'm not even sure how many species of gastropods, arthropods, and crustaceans there are on the worlds' coasts; but they certainly wouldn't survive a long submersion under 17,000 feet of sea water....

Please consider this:

If there had been a Noah’s ark where all animals were reduced to just two individuals – one male and one female – then the genetic variability, within a species (kind), of all animals existing today would be essentially ZERO. All animals, all over the world today, would suffer the problem of a lack of genetic variability that the Cheetah does today. The genes of Cheetahs are so similar, one to another, that when skin grafts between non-related Cheetahs are made there is no rejection of the donor skin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_variability

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheetah

Yet, this is not what is found. Only a few species (kinds) have the problem of low genetic variability. Cheetahs experienced a near extinction about 10,000 years ago (down to perhaps less than ten individuals). Today they have almost no genetic variability within the species because of that near extinction.

Yet, the millions of animals around the world don't suffer from this problem. That is because they were never reduced to just two individuals. They were never on an ark. There never was a general flood that caused all life, except for two of a kind of every animal, to perish.

It is obvious that the story of Noah’s ark is a wonderful story – but just a story.

First I don't think you truly care about the answers that will be given as you have clearly made up your mind. However I will indulge you on a few points. The bible never says that every living creature survived. Neither does it say that all plant life survived. How do any insects survive long periods of time in desolate situations or frigid to make it to the next season?. I think a good reading of the book of Job would help you primarily the last 3 chapters. In that I believe God describes many creatures in detail some of which I believe to be dinosaurs. Chapter 41 contains the phrase he ranks first in the works of God pertaining to the creatures size. A tail that sways like a cedar. This is interesting because Job is know as the oldest book in the bible. Before the time of Moses. Being that the Earth is 2/3rds water and most of the water came from the sky as it says it was above the firmament some receding happened and some evaporation as well. A whole new environmental system was created by this. I believe there were many more species of insects and animals before man proliferated the Earth. We are seeing only the tip of the iceberg. On that note much of the water has also become ice at the polar caps you know the thing we fear melting because the seas will rise and reclaim land? How do you explain BTW the tropical plants and animals found in the arctic region. It's because there was a greenhouse effect on this planet at one time that kept the whole planet in a tropical state. That is also why peoples ages were drastically changed from before and after the flood. The sun limits our years on the Earth and causes extreme aging when exposed directly instead of diffused through water. This is a snippet. I hope you actually care.

I will answer number 4. I think that God dealt with the others and made that happen. But where did the water go.

The Bible says that God broke open the doors and the water came out, this was when there was only one land, Genesis 1 and after we see that the land was divided Genesis 10:21. Now there are the platonic plates. The firmament which God worked on a whole day was gone now and on earth. We know that there are mountains under the water, so we can see that there is much more water on the earth today than then.

I think the fact that there are so many impossible variables in this story means 1 of 2 things.

1) It's not true; problem solved.

2) If there was truly a divine purpose for the flooding and for God's saving Noah, his family, and two of every creature, there are clearly not human ways of figuring out the details. Just getting all the creatures on the ark would be humanly impossible, not to mention all the things you listed. The same way Jesus feed thousands with enough food for five, and then had some leftover, it indeed passes all human understanding.

1. the rain was gradual and it took forty days for it to get high enough to cover the highest mountain iI know this sounds absurd but maybe plants could have floated that long? wood also floats for a short while this is a very good argument though

2.Their were no pandas just bears dont know about koalas

3.No it says in the bible they had a massive orgy (not exactly like that but thats what i got

4.Have you studied this yourself or did someone else say this?the window to heaven opened so the sun would evaporate most of this water in 150 days and the world was pretty dry so that might be were we got all this water from?also not too mention all the water that's underground you could be standing over a lake right now

5.this I dont know and im not going to pretend i know someone else might have an answer thank-you though this is the first good question ive heard in awhile

also i hate King James bibles

Genisis 6 19 Bring a pair of every kind of animal—a male and a female—into the boat with you to keep them alive during the flood. 20 Pairs of every kind of bird, and every kind of animal, and every kind of small animal that scurries along the ground, will come to you to be kept alive. Genisis 7 13 That very day Noah had gone into the boat with his wife and his sons—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—and their wives. 14 With them in the boat were pairs of every kind of animal—domestic and wild, large and small—along with birds of every kind. 15 Two by two they came into the boat, representing every living thing that breathes. 16 A male and female of each kind entered, just as God had commanded Noah. Then the Lord closed the door behind them

Also, how did he gather two of every animal species? There are literally thousands upon thousands of different snake species alone. Thats not even including the birds, beetles, and frogs. You would need an ark the size of Alaska to hold two of every species. And then you would need extra animals to feed the predators. And then you would need entire farms to feed the herbivores.

Final verdict of Noah's ark: A petty primitive story that is taken from older mythologies and slapped in the bible.

Estimates of load time at a reasonable rate run up to 10 years of loading animals.

There is not enough water present on earth to cover it to a depth of 17000 feet nor is there enough hydrogen present to make up the shortfall.

Edit:

Koalas eat a different speicies of eucalyptus every day, they don't repeat the same species in a row.

The original story of Noah is the story of Utnapishtim told by the ancient Sumerians. Perhaps you might want to learn about that. Genesis up until Abraham is nothing much but retold reinterpreted Sumerian epics.