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Some parts of it may cover events that actually happened but so do other religious scriptures and a lot of the bible is fairy tales such as Noahs Ark as we know it could not have worked in reality for a number of reasons.
Here's a copypaste from the last time I had this debate.
Well, let us just say for arguments sake that he got the boat built, and that he got all the animals on there (simply because these parts have been argued a million times over), this is where the fun begins.
Noah's flood myth states that the Earth was filled to the top of the highest mountain with water. This is an extra 8.8 Kilometers (give or take) above sea level around the entire surface of the Earth, (where this water came from or where it went is another matter we'll have to ignore).
Now, Noah and his rag tag crew are in this Gopher wood boat on top of this unimaginably large body of water, and what do we know about the movement of water?
That's right, it's controlled by the moon's gravitational interplay with the Earth.
If you are in that boat and are near the moon you will find your boat rising up on the sort of wave that would make the Burj al arab look like a canary's tampon and then find yourself being fuck around like only an angry God can manage, probably (because this is magic wood) surfing along towards the bright side of the Earth at a speed reserved for interstellar travel (not that the animals will mind, they love this shit).
But maybe God canceled that, and it didn't happen you say.
OK, so this boat is sitting on top of this body of water, that has basically pushed all of the non water-soluble molecules into this now massively volumetrically reduced and highly pressurised atmosphere, volcanoes will still piss out all manner of nasty shit into this space and it'll go straight into their lungs/on to their skin/ into their food source (whatever that was and what exactly did they drink?)
So, they must have been encased in a bubble of some sort to protect them.
We all know the arguments about the animals on the boat and food sources and yadayadayada. What about the living things that were not on the boat?
Every single aquatic life form would have been completely displaced, this body of water would massively change their habitat and push them so far away from their food source that they would all probably starve, or die in the desalinated or highly salted environment they now found themselves in; add to this the billions of tons of pressure that would be added means that most living things below a certain depth would be crushed to death (including microbes).
Say that all of the above were avoided by our merry sailors, once the water subsided they'd find that there was no plant life at all, and that there was very little oxygen, given that plants don't function very well under miles of brackish water without sunlight or carbon sources, add the algae to this as well.
So, with out plants for them or the herbivores and other omnivores to eat there'd be very little food add to this no potable water and fuck all breathable air and you are in trouble son.
But hey, this is God right? surely he made it so they could survive anything.
That leads to the question; What is the point?
God is omnipotent, surely simply erasing all of the wrong doers would have been easier, or maybe, just maybe, not making the cunts in the first place.
He's also omni-benevolent, but that must mean that benevolence is actually slaughtering every living thing on a planet in a very horrible way, that includes children, the mentally retarded and all of the other living things that were not lucky enough to be selected for the fun boat.
While I agree with you, I thought I'd clarify to play Devil's Advocate to a couple of points.
Firstly- being 8-9 kilometers closer to the moon isn't going to, in and of itself, significantly impact how rough the tides are. Large ocean swells aren't that difficult to work with given a large enough boat, it's when waves move through shallow areas that things get rough, forming the crested waves we associate with beaches. In this scenario, the swells would be larger, but would also be less rough overall; it would very literally be a more or less constant swell that trailed behind the moon, so to speak, in place of the crazy interactions that different tides have now as they interact with various shallows. Basically, your analogy of surfing on a massive wave at incredible speeds doesn't hold water; it'd be more accurate to say they would be riding up and down the occasional massive but relatively gently sloping swell- the same swell, over and over really.
As it stands now, the overwhelming majority of volcanoes are underwater. This hasn't destroyed the oceans or rendered them uninhabitable; why do you believe that adding a smaller proportion of volcanoes to a significantly larger proportion of water would have a harsher effect?
The result of adding that much water to the mix would be that the entirety of it would be brackish- closer to fresh than salty, really. Most saltwater and freshwater species can survive in brackish water, at least long enough to reproduce. In fact, given a gradual enough transition from salt to fresh or fresh to salt, either freshwater or saltwater species can adapt to the change in salinity; there was actually a study done on this over the course of 10 years, with a group of saltwater fish and a group of freshwater fish. The salinity in the salt tank was reduced and the fresh tank increased gradually over this period until they were equal, and the two populations were combined with little problem. Of course, they wouldn't have this kind of transition in the timeframe specified, but as I noted they weren't going from fresh to salty or salty to fresh, they were going from both to brackish, which most species can manage just fine (many, in fact, do this as part of their life cycle; salmon come to mind).
70-80% of the free oxygen in the world comes from the life cycles of algae. Terrestrial plants only account for 20-30% of that. The algae would not die outright from the change in salinity (algae blooms have been seen spreading from salt water to brackish water through to fresh water; Karenai Brevis {also known as the crimson tide} is one species that does this). While the growth rate of algae would be initially slowed, it would be followed by a boom in growth as well. Any reduction in oxygen output would be matched by the reduction in oxygen consumption with most terrestrial creatures wiped out- and even if it wasn't, it wouldn't be a case of suddenly having less oxygen, but rather a small reduction in free oxygen going into the system. Even without the reduction of creatures consuming oxygen, it would still take a considerable amount of time for the oxygen levels in the entire atmosphere to drop significantly.
The rest of it is pretty solid, but for the fact that if we're lending credence to the flood myth we are also lending de facto credence to the god myth, which could in and of itself account for the remainder- except for the why, and again I can't really come up with a valid why scenario (and even if I could, why by a big flood?
I don't believe in the flood myth anymore than you do, and many of your points are good, but if you're arguing against theology with fact, it's important to get the facts straight; the facts being sketchy isn't going to harm the religious side one bit, but sketchy facts are very damaging to the rational factual side.
OK, to start if the flood levels reached the levels that they were described as (covering the highest mountains) then most of the animals would have died of the low temperatures due to the high altitude. Also when all of the animals got of the boat and started repopulating there offspring would have to breed to create the next generation so they all would have ended up inbred with lots of defects. Furthermore all the plants would have been killed in the flood so there would be no food left when they go out. There are many other pretty obvious flaws with the story.
First off: Disclaimer, I don't believe in the flood myth. I'm clarifying rather than disputing your statement for that reason.
The temperature differential at higher altitude is caused by several factors.
Firstly, rays from the sun don't immediately confer their warmth; they do so as part of the energy loss when deflecting off of surfaces. Being far removed from the majority of this deflection is part of the reason that it's cold at higher altitudes. With sea level being significantly higher and the majority of deflection occurring higher up, this is a non issue.
Secondly, the density of the atmosphere is a factor in the temperature as well. Lower pressure air contains fewer molecules in the same volume, resulting in fewer molecular collisions and less transfer of heat. With the rising water level, the "bottom" or densest, highest-pressure region of the atmosphere would still be just above sea level. Granted, with the increase in the earths surface area due to the extra water, the pressure at sea level would be lower than it is at current sea level, but it would again not be a significant decrease. It would still be denser than it is currently in, say, Colorado, and people and animals seem to live there without any problem.
Thirdly, a greenhouse effect caused by water vapor is involved. This is why deserts tend to get so cold at night; with the majority of the earths surface area covered by water, and sunlight deflecting almost exclusively off of water, the entirety of the earth would have this minor greenhouse effect.
There is no reason to conclude that those altitudes would be cold in this scenario, and much reason to expect the opposite.
Additionally, most animal species don't have anywhere near the level of genetic problems due to inbreeding that humans do. The available information seems to indicate that the entirety of the human gene pool was reduced to a very small number of individuals, maybe in the tens of thousands, at some point in our history. As such, when we inbreed, we're compounding issues that have already accrued from a very limited gene pool. Most animal species wouldn't have this issue, at least not immediately.
The food issue is pretty valid though; while certainly additional algae and seaweed growth would provide food for some species, this isn't the kind of stuff that most terrestrial species can eat.
OK, to start if the flood levels reached the levels that they were described as (covering the highest mountains) then most of the animals would have died of the low temperatures due to the high altitude.
I don't believe this, back up your science with sources.
Also when all of the animals got of the boat and started repopulating there offspring would have to breed to create the next generation so they all would have ended up inbred with lots of defects.
How do you know that their are not defects already?
Have you considered that we ourselves maybe be defective, but our behavior is accepted as the norm since it is generally widespread, so we would not see ourselves as "defective"
Furthermore all the plants would have been killed in the flood so there would be no food left when they go out.
Just because everything got covered in water doesn't mean all of the food would be gone. Plants like water.
"I don't believe this, back up your science with sources."
OK the highest point on Earth is Mount Everest and incase you don't know it is freezing cold up there so the animals would have died of the cold.
"Just because everything got covered in water doesn't mean all of the food would be gone. Plants like water."
Wow you really do lack basic common sense. Plants need water but in moderation they can be drowned as well. Also they would be far beneath the water on the bottom were barely any sunlight could have reached and even more importantly plants need Carbon Dioxide for photo synthesis. If plants can survive being submereged completely in water then explain why you don't find trees growing at the bottom of lakes.
I can't reiterate this enough, but I don't believe in the flood myth.
That said- lack of oxygen wouldn't be an issue in that scenario. At high altitudes, there is not a significantly different percentage or proportion of oxygen, but there is generally lower air pressure, so the partial pressure of oxygen is reduced at high altitudes. This would not be the case with sea levels rising so drastically, as the air pressure at the new sea level would only be slightly less than it is at sea level now, and that small reduction only due to the increase in surface area.
I know it is so illogical. There is no way a Christian can get out of admitting it is impossible to have happened worked other than something along the lines of "it worked in mysterious ways" or in other words "magic".
I agree. Most try to squirm out of admitting it by bringing up the god can do everything card. By that point you know there isn't anything else they can say to refute you and might as well leave it :P
Then it would be subject to the same scrutiny as any other history book. Unfortunately, most events described are unverified, and many are so ludicrously implausible as to bear much more resemblance to mythology than to history.
Often times the answers available in these debates presents us with false dichotomies. The wordings of the original claims could alleviate this issue to some degree but I don't think 99% of the people here care. Maybe I am just being overly exact...anyways off to the discussion.
The bible has some historical value that gets muddled up with non sequitur information (whether a deity was on X side of a battle is irrelevant from a historical standpoint, but not from a religious standpoint) and then completely implausible information and or issues of morality backed with only petitions of principle.
For instance many of the historical battles that took place within the bible had happened, whether any deity had anything to do with it is irrelevant to the historical accuracy of the issue.
The implausible information can be discussed (and has been discussed) in other threads, but the point is it is not history but myth making and or moral declarations.
Someone could write a book about about former North Korean dictator K J I and use historical instances to try to prove the divinity of his rule, and then use those instances to try to lend weight to his decisions. Would that book be a history book or would it fit more closely into other categories such as religion, propaganda (politics?) or inspiration.
The issue is how much history in a book, as well as the aim of the book, has to be present to call it a history book. Just because a book has some historical instances in it does not make it a history book.
Why does Julius Africanus say the following, then? “On the whole world there pressed a most fearful darkness; and the rocks were rent by an earthquake, and many places in Judea and other districts were thrown down. This darkness Thallus, in the third book of his History, calls, as appears to me without reason, an eclipse of the sun.” (Julius Africanus, Chronography, 18:1)
As an historical reference the Bible is so unreliable as to need substantiation for every event it covers. It would be far more accurate to say the Bible is fiction vaguely and occasionally influenced by actual events when convenient, and then distorted further into fiction by thousands of years of re-translations. It would be far more efficient to go straight to reliable history resources.