Could Noah's Ark hold all the animals?

[mjmooney]

OK, I'm convinced. It's all true.

[steaknchips]

We are still discovering species of animal in remote rainforests and other areas these days, but some bearded 400 year old managed to get all the world's species into one boat? I have to say it doesn't sound very plausible. And while we're on the subject of religion, is there anywhere I can complain to about Jehovah's Witnesses. We're being absolutely plagued by them, and seem to be getting the door knocked and/or literature shoved through the door every single day.

There were two qualifications for the animals on board the Ark: they not only had to be those which moved about on the earth, but also those that had the breath of life, or "nephesh." The word "nephesh" refers to those animals with soul: or, if you like, "responsive personality." Thus, you would have all mammals that lived on land, reptiles, and birds. Amphibians did not need the Ark, and insects, worms, bacteria, etc., do not have a nervous system which is complex enough to mark the animal or organism as having a uniqueness and the trainability which "nephesh" implies. Thus, these organisms were preserved in various ways outside the Ark through the flood.

Regarding the food situation, if you read Genesis, you will notice that no one disembarked until the dove brought back an olive shoot. Olives do not grow as quickly as grass, and so there is the indication that the vegetation was quite adequate for survival immediately after release from the Ark.

As far as the cultures are concerned, you will find a very accurate and widely-referred-to Table of Nations in Genesis 10. It is used by archaeologists, historians, and linguists to help trace the roots of various ancient cultures and has proven to be quite accurate. As far as repopulation of the earth is concerned, not much time was needed for the early civilizations. In Genesis 11 you will read of the long ages (although only half of what they were pre-flood), which then went down again after the event of Peleg's time and gradually, after that, to what we know today as the upper limit on human ages -- about 120 years. In the early generations, we read of families being rather large, and when the average family has about six children or more, the population can grow quite rapidly.

[Stevo985]

SnC, you really are a jam sandwich short of a picnic

[Jon]

SnC, you really are a jam sandwich short of a picnic

:nod:

He's infested The Off Tropics now, as well as the Main Villa Talk Section.

Be gone with your evil God Bothering ways, Chip Man! :evil:

[Gingerlad]

How can they have all got onto an imaginary boat made by an imaginary man who was instructed by an imaginary spirit?

[Chindie]

Most cultures have flood myths. Shock horror - most of the world has regions that suffer devastating/large scale floods. Add in human love of narrative (i.e. making stories to fit what we see) et voila, hundreds if not thousands of years of bullshit peddled for simpletons.

[Chindie]

(lots of angel quantum)

You hope thats tongue in cheek, don't you? Being from Sweden, chances are high.

[bickster]

there are numerous sedimentary deposits world-wide which suggest a universal flood.

name one please

There are countless fossil deposits world-wide (fossilization occurs when organisms are buried rapidly within sediment.). Every major culture has a flood legend.

Fossilisation take's 10,000 years minimum, name me one of these countless deposits please I'd be greatly interested

Fossilization requires rapid burial and removal from oxygen. 95% of all fossils are marine invertebrates.

Fossils of marine creatures are found all over the world in different altitudes and climates.

Sedimentary rocks cover 75% - 80% of the Earth's land area and include chalk, limestone, dolomite, sandstone and shale.

Limestone is made up largely of calcite, the primary source of which is commonly marine organisms. Unless buried rapidly these organisms would degrade.

Fossils of marine creatures including brachiopods, ammonites, belemnites, foraminifera and radiolarians have been found in limestone beds around the world.

Massive chalk deposits are found in the White Cliffs of Dover, White Rocks of Ireland and in France.

Fossils of trilobites are on top of Mt. Everest though they are supposed to have been extinct 250 mya. The Himalayas have one of the greatest rates of erosion in the world and it is estimated that two to four miles of rock have been eroded every million years.

There are ammonite fossils at the 12,000 feet level on Mt. Everest.

There are fossils and marine sediments on mountain ranges all over the world including the Himalayas, Alps, Andes, Ural, Altai, Appalachian and Rocky Mountains.

Coal is full of carbon 14 which has a half life of 5,730 years.

Bituminous coal reveals traces of wood, bark, leaves, spores and seed coats.

Fossils of marine creatures such as brachiopods, fish, and molluscs, have been found in coal.

Fossils of Spirorbis tubeworms have been found fastened to the outside edges of mussels in the coal measures of Nova Scotia. Their presence is strong evidence that much of the coal is allochthonous; originally transported from a different location.

Coal balls are very well preserved masses of vegetation found in coal seams and often minute details of plants including cellular structure can be observed with a microscope. Such preservation indicates rapid formation.

Fossils found in the sediments above coal layers containing dolomite coal balls were found to be of marine origin.

Fossilized coprolites similar to those from mites, collembola and millipedes have been found in coal balls indicating rapid burial and removal from oxygen.

Carbonized impressions of plants or their parts are common in coal measures.

Marine roof shale sometimes occur above coal seams and contain goniatites, an extinct ammonite and layers of limestone are interbedded in some coal seams.

Fossils, animal tracks and raindrop impact craters have been found in shale indicating that they was formed quickly under enormous pressure.

The Burgess shale formation in the Canadian Rockies contains many fossils of soft bodied organisms including sponges, various worm-like phyla (annelids and priapulids), brachiopods, echinoderms, chordates, and mollusks as well as algae. One of the algae is morania confluens which easily disintegrates over time.

In an anaerobic environment marine invertebrates normally curl up when they die but those found in the Burgess Shale do not exhibit this.

Many of the soft bodied fossils in the Burgess Shale left carbon films showing marine creatures were fossilized rapidly.

In Chengjiang China consisting of shale and loaded with fossils of soft bodied organisms. The fossils at Chengjiang show excellent preservation.

Brachiopods and priapulid worms are buried in life positions at Chengjiang and the cause of death of animals there was asphyxia.

Some polystrate trees found within coal-bearing strata show evidence of regeneration after being partially buried by sediments.

In 2005 a fossilized forest covering forty square miles was found in an Illinois coal mine. Scientists believe there was an earthquake with a flood which buried the forest. Among the species of plants were fossilized remains of mangrove-like plants. On an evolutionary time scale mangroves appear in the late Cretaceous period more than 200 million years after the Carboniferous period.

In 2008 a team from the Department of Earth Sciences at University of Bristol found five more fossilized forests in Illinois. They are believed to have grown a few million years apart but they are stacked one on top of the other. Scientists believe the "ancient land experienced repeated periods of subsidence and flooding which buried the forests in a vertical sequence."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7604721.stm

Many plants left an impression in the coal bed showing they were buried quickly and were put under extreme pressure.

There are also fossil forests in Yellowstone Park, New Zealand, Ellesmere Island and Axel Heiberg Island in the Canadian Arctic.

Polystrate fossils are also found in the Joggins cliffs in Nova Scotia. They also contain fossils of spirorbis and naidites, a bivalve mollusk and a fossil trackway from a horseshoe crab.

One of the layers of compressed, fossil sea bed at the Joggins Cliff contains small leaves, fish scales and sea shells. Fish scales would degrade quickly in aerobic environment.

Given the right conditions wood can be be petrified rapidly by silicification, even at normal temperatures and pressures.

40 fossilized bees nests were found within giant petrified, or mummified, logs at the Petrified Forest National Park in Arizona. Until recently bee fossils, believed to be the oldest, were dated to about 70 million years. A bee fossilized in amber in a mine in Myanmar is believed to be about 100 mya.

The fossil tree trunks are dated from 207 to 220 million years ago. The fossilized bees and tree trunks would have to withstand erosion and the shock-wave and ensuing tidal wave caused by the Chicxulub asteroid. It is believed to have had a force of hundreds of millions of atomic bombs like the one dropped on Hiroshima.

Vast fossil graveyards have been discovered, often with animals that normally wouldn't have been together when they died.

A fossil graveyard was discovered in Tampa, Florida that has fossilized camels, horses, mammoths, bears, wolves, large cats, sharks' teeth, turtle shells, the bones of fresh and salt water fish and a bird with an estimated 30-foot wingspan.

Fossils in an Alaskan fossil graveyard include "..two types of bears, dire wolf, wolf, fox, badger, wolverine, saber-tooth cat, jaguar, lynx, wooly mammoth, mastodon, two horses, camel, saiga antelope, four bison, caribou, moose, stag-moose, elk, two sheep, musk-ox and yak types, ground sloth, and several rodents."

(R.F. Flint, Glacial and Pleistocene Geology, 1957, p. 471)

Other fossil graveyards include the Ashley Beds of South Carolina, the Cumberland Bone Cave in Maryland, the La Brea Tar Pits in California, the Herring fossil layers in California, the hippopotamus beds in Sicily, Agate Springs in Nebraska, love bone bed in Florida, insect fossils of Elmo Kansas, Mazon Creek formation in Illinois, the Arlington Archosaur Site in Texas, the Green River formation and Florissant Fossil Beds in Colorado, the Montceau-les-Mines in France, Scotland's Old Red Sandstone, the Zeuglodon Valley in Egypt and Ukhaa Tolgod in the Gobi desert, Mongolia.

In the Australian outback there's an area of fossilized jellyfish (trace fossils) in a sandstone bed covering more than 400 square miles.

Thousands of fossilized impressions of jellyfish were discovered in a quarry in Mosinee, Wisconsin. They were in sandstone beds that were stacked horizontally in seven layers of rock about 12 feet high.

Nautiloids found in the Grand Canyon were mollusks and are believe to have lived in the Paleozoic era between 542 million years and 251 million years ago. The fossils are in a bed of Redwall Limestone that begins at the Grand Canyon and covers an area of approximatley 5,700 square miles.

In 2001 a Cuban paleontologist found more than 500 giant oyster fossils in the Andes mountains; about 4000 feet above sea level. When an oyster dies the central muscle relaxes and the shell opens. These oysters were in the closed position which may have resulted from being rapidly buried in silt.

Flat-topped seamounts or submarine volcanoes (guyots) discovered in the 1940’s show evidence of wave action.

Marine fossils of various kinds have been found all over the United States indicating that the areas were under water and something caused the creatures to be buried rapidly in an anaerobic environment.

Massive flooding by the Glacial Lake Missoula cut canyons and covered cliffs reshaping the landscape and reaching to the Pacific.

A fossilized whale was discovered in Lompoc California in 1976. The whale wasn’t standing on its tale as first reported but at a 40 degree angle and was buried rapidly in diatomic earth.

More than 500 fossilized baleen whales have been found in western Peru over 20 kilometers from the Pacific Ocean in an area called the Pisco formation. Researchers believe the whales were killed by toxic blooms of diatoms then buried by the accumulation of diatom frustules on the seafloor.

Fossils of whales and other marine creatures have been found in sediments in the Andes mountains. The fossilized jawbone of a whale was discovered in the Himalayan foothills.

The skeleton of a whale was found in Tuscany about six miles from the Mediterranean along with fossils of shells, fish and shark teeth. The fossil of a beluga whale was discovered in Norfolk, New York. There have been whale fossils discovered in Cornwall, Ontario, the Jacquet River in New Brunswick and in Montreal. In 1849 railroad workers uncovered the fossil of a beluga whale in Vermont which is the inspiration for a sculpture called "Reverence" in Burlington. The fossil was found 150 feet above sea level along with fossilized clams, mussels and plants.

Lake Titicaca is the highest navigable lake on earth at more than 12,000 feet above sea level. It is located in Peru and Bolivia and covers about 3,200 square miles, the northern tip being about 1,000 miles south of the equator. Divers found a 200 meter long, 50 meter wide temple at the bottom of Lake Titicaca after following a submerged road. They also found a terrace for crops and an 800 meter long containing wall. There are ancient submerged structures in Yonaguni, Japan and sunken cities in India, China and Peru. What appears to be a sunken city off the coast of Cuba is being studied by scientists.

Fossilisation still takes an absolute minimum of 10,000 years

Oh I gave up at the lack of oxygen bit, even though most fossils are marine creatures you need a lack of oxygen? How does that work then?

Sea levels rise and fall with glacial and interglacial periods, it's not some "great flood", yes there are submerged cities, just as their are raised beaches, it's perfectly natural and logical, it happens over a much larger time scale than anything you would describe as a flood though

[johnsonp]

120 years to build, no wonder there country was in such a mess the lazy bastards

[Gingerlad]

[Brumerican]

There were two qualifications for the animals on board the Ark: they not only had to be those which moved about on the earth, but also those that had the breath of life, or "nephesh." The word "nephesh" refers to those animals with soul: or, if you like, "responsive personality." Thus, you would have all mammals that lived on land, reptiles, and birds. Amphibians did not need the Ark, and insects, worms, bacteria, etc., do not have a nervous system which is complex enough to mark the animal or organism as having a uniqueness and the trainability which "nephesh" implies. Thus, these organisms were preserved in various ways outside the Ark through the flood.

.

So did Noah buy 700,000 sets of mini SCUBA equipment to help all the different varieties of beetle alone, survive ?

[Stevo985]

How can they have all got onto an imaginary boat made by an imaginary man who was instructed by an imaginary spirit?

Use your imagination

[steaknchips]

There were two qualifications for the animals on board the Ark: they not only had to be those which moved about on the earth, but also those that had the breath of life, or "nephesh." The word "nephesh" refers to those animals with soul: or, if you like, "responsive personality." Thus, you would have all mammals that lived on land, reptiles, and birds. Amphibians did not need the Ark, and insects, worms, bacteria, etc., do not have a nervous system which is complex enough to mark the animal or organism as having a uniqueness and the trainability which "nephesh" implies. Thus, these organisms were preserved in various ways outside the Ark through the flood.

.

So did Noah buy 700,000 sets of mini SCUBA equipment to help all the different varieties of beetle alone, survive ?

Did you see the caterpillar survive through years of arctic winters on Frozen Planet the other night?

[JulieB]

People might dismiss the flood legend as mere fairy tales, but no one appears to be able to explain why tales of Noah and the Great Flood

turn up in cultures across the globe. Even Red Indian tribes who live in the middle of the North American continent thousands of miles

from the nearest ocean have them.

Apparently some Royal households in Europe can trace their lineage right back to Japeth who was one of the sons of Noah.

Noah didn't just build an Ark he was commanded to be "a preacher of righteousness" The Earth was filled with violence and it was a bad place. Beings from another dimension had bred with female humans and the gene pool of mankind had been corrupted, creating a super human race, which the Bible calls the Nephilim. Sometimes called the Annunaki. The men of fame like Hercules...half man, half God who again ancient civilisations like Greece, Rome commemerated and worshipped even after the flood. The world in which Noah lived had become degenerate.... until “every inclination of the thoughts of [man’s] heart was only bad all the time” and the earth became “ruined, because all flesh had ruined its way on the earth. What's also fascinated me is that in eg Greek/Roman mythology. There are on the also many fables of half beast, half God. Is it possible that these "fallen angels" mixed their genes somehow with beasts, so that the whole Earth became contaminated with unnatural DNA?

The flood wasn't just a rain shower for forty days and nights.... the Bible states that it was a deluge from above and below, which would have had catastrophic consequences on the Earth's climate, tectonics and solar radiation. The Greek word used in the Bible to refer to the Flood, or Deluge, is ka‧ta‧kly‧smos′, a cataclysm.

It has been said that if all the moisture in the atmosphere were suddenly released as rain it would not amount to even a couple of inches if spread over the earth’s surface. So from what source was this vast deluge of Noah’s day? According to the Genesis account, God said to Noah: “Here I [Jehovah] am bringing the deluge [or, “heavenly ocean”; Heb., mab‧bul′] of waters upon the earth.” (Ge 6:17, ftn) Describing what happened, the next chapter says: “All the springs of the vast watery deep were broken open and the floodgates of the heavens were opened.” (Ge 7:11) So overwhelming was the Deluge that “all the tall mountains that were under the whole heavens came to be covered.”—Ge 7:19.

Where did this “heavenly ocean” come from? The Genesis account of creation tells how on the second “day” Jehovah made an expanse about the earth, and this expanse (called “Heaven”) formed a division between the waters below it, that is, the oceans, and the waters above it. (Ge 1:6-8) The waters suspended above the expanse evidently remained there from the second “day” of creation until the Flood. This is what the apostle Peter was talking about when he recounted that there “were heavens from of old and an earth standing compactly out of water and in the midst of water by the word of God.” Those “heavens” and the waters above and beneath them were the means that God’s word called into operation, and “by those means the world of that time suffered destruction when it was deluged with water.” (2Pe 3:5, 6) Various explanations have been offered as to how the water was held aloft until the Flood and as to the processes that resulted in its falling. But these are only speculative. The Bible says simply that God made the expanse with waters above it and that he brought the Deluge. His almighty power could easily accomplish it.

Since, as the Genesis account says, “all the tall mountains” were covered with water, where is all that water now? Evidently it is right here on the earth. It is believed that there was a time when the oceans were smaller and the continents were larger than they are now, as is evidenced by river channels extending far out under the oceans. It should also be noted that scientists have stated that mountains in the past were much lower than at present, and some mountains have even been pushed up from under the seas. As to the present situation, it is said that “there is ten times as much water by volume in the ocean as there is land above sea level. Dump all this land evenly into the sea, and water would cover the entire earth, one and one-half miles deep.” (National Geographic, January 1945, p. 105) So, after the floodwaters fell, but before the raising of mountains and the lowering of seabeds and before the buildup of polar ice caps, there was more than enough water to cover “all the tall mountains,” as the inspired record says.—Ge 7:19.

The Bible shows that the flood cleansed the earth and mankind's DNA of this corruption and violence. It also limited mankinds lifespan, presumably due to increased solar radiation damage. Noah and his family were God fearing and peacable and they tried to warn people for many years that God would not allow the Earth to be indefinitely ruined.... for about 40 years while they built the Ark, however people scoffed at them and their message.

Just like Noah and his family Jehovah's Witnesses try and show people from the Bible that God will not put up with the earth being ruined indefinitely and that there is a hope of a world government taking over Earth's affairs where violence, poverty and corruption will not exist.

Martin if you don't want Jehovah's Witnessess to knock on your door, then as you live right by a Kingdom Hall I have said previously

just go & have a word or just push a note through the door with your address on stating that they should no longer call. The congregation should respect your wishes, if they haven't done so then you should complain.

[Jon]

There were two qualifications for the animals on board the Ark: they not only had to be those which moved about on the earth, but also those that had the breath of life, or "nephesh." The word "nephesh" refers to those animals with soul: or, if you like, "responsive personality." Thus, you would have all mammals that lived on land, reptiles, and birds. Amphibians did not need the Ark, and insects, worms, bacteria, etc., do not have a nervous system which is complex enough to mark the animal or organism as having a uniqueness and the trainability which "nephesh" implies. Thus, these organisms were preserved in various ways outside the Ark through the flood.

.

So did Noah buy 700,000 sets of mini SCUBA equipment to help all the different varieties of beetle alone, survive ?

Did you see the caterpillar survive through years of arctic winters on Frozen Planet the other night?

The wonders of science, nature and evolution. Top stuff. :nod:

[blunther]

Holy shit.

[JulieB]

Anyhows the Atheists have their viewpoints and others have theirs so it's really not worth debating, it just turns nasty.

[Stevo985]

I'm not an atheist, kind of.

Plus my whole family are religious so I have full respect for religion and religious people, being raised a catholic myself.

BUt I still think believeing Noah's Ark could be real is ludicrous.

[Gingerlad]

I'm not an atheist, kind of.

Plus my whole family are religious so I have full respect for religion and religious people, being raised a catholic myself.

BUt I still think believeing Noah's Ark could be real is ludicrous.

Exactly the same here. My whole family are church going christians and alot of my friends also. Im not though. I grew out of it.

[Bazdavies79]

Call me Columbo, but some aspects of the story just don't add up...