Christians, Do you believe in the great flood & Noah's Ark

Christians, I got a question for you, do you believe that the great flood happend, and that all animals went on Noah's ark? why do you believe this, to me it makes no sense, how is it possbile thousands of species can fit on his boat. Think of it, look at how much species of insects we have in the rainforests, theres just to much. Even today we haven't discoverd all of them. There are more examples if you want to know them.

I believe it is the underlying story that you are supposed to be reading. As a Christian and a Environmental Scientist I believe that the best way to describe Noah's Ark story is closely related to the more understandable version. The Ant and the Grasshopper.

Or watch Even Almighty. That seems to put a good twist on the subject as well.

reply to post by Jauk3


Its theoretically impossible to get two of every animal from across the globe into one ship of the size that is stated in the bible...

And theres no proof a global flood ever happened... so if the "story" is true... it was likely a local flood.

Theres also no way Noah would be able to take care of and control all of these animals in such a confined space for 40 days and 40 nights...

Im not a christian either way, so i know this isn't directed at me...

Just giving my two cents

To make it easier, I'll itemize my answers

1. Yes it happened.
2. How did they fit on the ark? Well it was a miracle.
3. The flood story has been mentioned by MANY cultures independent of the others. Out of all of the Bible stories, it's the one that we can definitely say happened.

reply to post by Akragon


Exactly, that was what I was trying to say.

reply to post by Jauk3


I guess for each person its just a matter of personal opinion on whether to believe what it says in the bible. The actually story is told with all those things presupposed as facts (two of every animal, big boat, global flood, etc.) It's up to an individual if they are going to pick and chose which parts of the bible they want to believe, or whether they will believe all/none of it.

It's impossible to prove whether it is the truth or not, so I feel there isn't much point getting too fussed over it.

I think the ark story is plausible. Noah had close to a hundred years to get the ark built and also had extended family available to help out.

It does not say that every species was brought on board. It says every "kind" of land creature.

A good explanation of that distinction can be found by searching on the "Answers in Genesis" website:
www.answersingenesis.org...

Remember that what is called a "species" these days can be somewhat arbitrary. Just because a researcher finds a beetle with a different spot or notch, they seem to want to claim it as a newly discovered species so that they can put their name to it.

I thought I recall back when I was in school that in order for something to be a species, it could not be able to interbreed with others outside its species and produce viable offspring (that could themselves still reproduce). And then you go and see all the different wolves and coyotes and even dogs being listed as separate species when they can still interbreed and produce offspring that can be bred further (however undesireable).

reply to post by Jauk3
I personally believe so, yes.

Other posters have already referred to the matter of 'kinds' (for example, the dog is a descendant of the wolf [and all the many varieties of dogs one species anyway], and so on - so some common descent of what we today consider species is easily understandable to trim down the required number of animals on board...and we're quite obviously dealing with the miraculous anyway, so yes, we could also allow that 'god' could possibly have sped up differentiation, etc., to allow for current variety).

As well, there is proof for the flood - the interpretation disputed, obviously - all around us, regardless if arguments of gradualism vs. catastrophism will never end...as well as the MANY multi-cultural references around the globe indicating a universal memory of man's past.

Some also argue that the size of the ark doesn't permit such a thing to occur - but the ark would have had a volume equal to...what, I believe about 52 rail cars or so, and the average size of land animals on earth is around that of a sheep, if I recall.

Implausible? From a purely naturalistic standpoint, sure. Impossible? No - especially when we don't forget we're dealing with supposed miraculous and divine involvement.

EDIT -
I do have to say I'm curious why jews (as well as all the other faiths) weren't invited to this party, since the flood story is directly part of their scriptures?

reply to post by Jauk3


First of all, I am not a Christian, I'm probably the the furthest thing from a Christian you will find. Many of you have probably seen me on threads pointing out the stupidity of religion and supporting evolution in those anti-evolution threads.

Having said that, the story of the great flood is echoed through countless different ancient texts in one form or another... this leads me to believe some type of massive flood did indeed take place on Earth at some point in the distant past.

Do I believe the whole world flooded? No... because that is literally impossible, it was most likely an isolated region of Earth which contained a large portion of the Human population. Do I believe some guy built a massive boat and saved all the animals?

No... I don't believe that either. It's possible some guy did build a fairly large boat and save a great deal of animals... it's also possible there was some type of alien aspect involved, which saved the DNA of a vast amount of animals.

All I really believe is that a massive ass flood did happen and it killed a lot of people...

Why do people, who can google search educated answers to questions, try and bait people to defending a posistion of faith?

Trollish, but to answer your question........ if you believe in a resurection from the dead, a boat full of animals is small beans.

reply to post by davidchin


Then if every kind of land animal was brought on board, how do you explain the number of species we find today?

Originally posted by BS_Slayer
reply to post by davidchin

 

Then if every kind of land animal was brought on board, how do you explain the number of species we find today?

Excellent point... I'm waiting for him to say it was evolution.

Here is a poll I found. They did not ask about belief in the flood story, but they asked about the creation story and the Red Sea story which are somewhat connected.

Many people like myself are taught these stories as fact from childhood. When you are old enough to question these stories they are already engrained. True or false is almost irrelevant by that time. They might as well be true, because they have affected culture as if they were true.

Also, I think many believers are very reluctant to say they don't believe these stories simply because then they must go through the entire Bible and decide what they believe and what they don't believe. That gets very messy, so it's better to sweep the problem under the rug.

(Ventura, CA) - Americans may be skeptical about the claims of politicians, but they remain confident that some of the most amazing stories in the Bible can be taken at face value. A new nationwide survey conducted by The Barna Group shows that six well-known Bible stories are accepted as literal truth by an average of two out of three adults.

The Bible opens with the description of God creating the universe in six days. That report is accepted as literally true by 60% of the adult population. This passage brought out major distinctions across people groups. For instance, while 73% of the adults who did not attend college believe this account to be literal, just half as many college graduates (38%) hold that view. About half of the residents of the Northeast (52%) and West (50%) hold a literal view of the creation account, compared to 62% of those in the Midwest and 72% of those in the South. Again, the Catholic-Protestant divide was sizeable: half of Catholics (52%) and three-fourths of Protestants (74%) have a literal interpretation of creation. More than four out of five blacks (83%) are literalists on this matter, versus 64% of Hispanics and 59% of whites.

Two out of three Americans (64%) believe that Moses literally parted the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to escape from the Egyptians. Regionally, almost four out of five southerners (78%) accept this story as literal truth, while less than three out of five adults from other regions hold the same view (59% in the Midwest and West, 57% in the Northeast). Similarly, four out of five Protestants (79%) and three out of five Catholics (60%) embrace a literal interpretation of the Red Sea story.

Barna Group Poll

reply to post by cloudyday


Interesting stats.

Thanks

Why would you ask Christians this? It's in the Old Testament. If anything, it is a Jewish story. In fact, it is older than that. A "flood" story appears in mythology all over the world. It doesn't always have an ark, but it has a flood.

I get a kick when people say, "It is impossible to get all the animals on an ark!" as if no one has ever thought of that before or done the math. Of course it is impossible. Why do you take things so literally? Most Christians I know don't take that story literally. Why do you believe Christians do? You may have some fundamentalist sects who believe the Bible literally, but most Christians take those stories with a grain of salt. They know it is mythology. They know many Biblical stories are allegories or metaphors. To think of them as literally true is simplistic in the extreme. Who is really the butt of the joke here? Catch my drift?

As to ther being "no evidence of a massive flood," Bzzt. Thanks for playing. There is ample evidence. It did not "cover the earth." It flooded the coastlines--all of them. And for those people in nascent civilizations tied to the sea, the flood may as well have covered the earth because it surely covered them.

About 12,000 years ago sea levels rose 60 feet. There are those who say it happened very quickly. Why? because of Global Warming. We are still coming off the last Ice Age. Now, have you ever been in Chicago during winter when it can be -70F? Lake Michigan has tides, and when the water cascades onto the beach it freezes. More water comes ashore and it freezes. Eventually the lake itself freezes, at least close to shore. the beaches have a wall of ice several feet tall. I've walked on top of these ice dams.

When spring comes the lake unfreezes first. Why? Because it is actually warmer than the surrounding land. It is a giant heat sink. After the lake thaws out, then the ice on land thaws back into water to return to the lake. It happens every year.

Now imagine the same mechanism at work around Hudson Bay. A vast sheet of ice covered North America, including that old asteroid crater, Hudson Bay. Same rule as Lake Michigan. As the Ice Age retreated, Hudson Bay thawed out first because it was warmer. It was full of water, higher than today, held back by a giant ice dam on land, which had not yet unfrozen.

Then the dam was breached, and all that water ended the world's oceans at once. It was enough water to change the coastlines and flood any civilization close to the coasts.

Thus, universal flood, the flood myth, and the origins of the Noah's Ark story, kept alive though oral tradition and mythology, changed here and there to suit the aims of the storyteller. The same flood story is found in India, in Japan, and in coastal Native American mythology. You can dive off the coast of Japan and find stone steps. You can dive off the coast of India and encounter buildings underwater. The evidence is everywhere.

In an attempt to poke holes in Christianity here you've failed miserably. It's not a Christian story. You can as easily call it a Muslim story because they, also, ascribe to the Old Testament and consider themselves children of Abraham. Many of the old stories are allegories and metaphor. They aren't meant to be taken literally. It's just that they are easier to memorize if you have a cohesive story to tell and don't have writing to preserve it in its original form. People who are religious, the seminaries and priests, all know this. But you come on a story like this and junp to your brilliant conclusion that it is "impossible," somehow believing that you are the only smart guy in the room. In fact, you lack understanding. You don;t know what the story is about. And your literal interpretation is as simplistic as believing the Earth really is 6,000 years old.

As another poster stated, Noah had lots of time to build the ark. It was not a ship, as "ark" implies something more like a box, so let's think "barge." I don't know what to make of the claims that the ark was found high up on Mount Ararat, and also in the hill country nearby. People swear by both, but the important thing to remember is that a box of the proportions given in Genesis yields a vessel of extraordinary stability in rough water.

Species, as we know them, arose after the flood. In the time of Noah, there were still the original created kinds, which were more at the genus level, or even more generic. "All air breathers" would have involved far fewer individual animals than the critics allow. Further, Noah could have easily taken in juvenile animals, which would have eased the problems of space and food.

Flood myths are almost universal, and the one of the Miao people in China has preserved the names of all the patriarchs of Genesis PHONETICALLY for all those centuries. Yes, they got the names of Noah, his wife, and his sons all correct, sounding more than merely recognizable.

I can't buy the local flood theories - I mean there were and are local floods, but the big one is preserved in the entire sedimentary layers around the world. You can interpret them as laid down during millions of years if you want, but I think rapid deposition is at least a valid an interpretation.

In conclusion:
God said it
I believe it (for good reason)
that settles it.

It was done with magic!!!!!!!!

Originally posted by BS_Slayer
reply to post by davidchin

 

Then if every kind of land animal was brought on board, how do you explain the number of species we find today?

Just because we have discovered them today, doesn't mean they weren't known about back then.

yes.

There has been conclusive research done showing that the ark could have been well within the realm of possibility.

Examples of "kinds":

Equine-- horse, zebra, donkey
Canine-- dogs, wolves, coyotes, jackals
Aurochs-- cow, buffalo, ox, yak, zebu
Felidae-- large cats, feral cats, domestic cats
Sciurinae-- ground squirrels, chipmunks, marmots, prairie dogs
Muroidea-- rats, mice, lemmings, hamsters, gerbils

As you can see, 6 "kinds" can produce an exponential number of animals adapted to their environment.

The Ark measured 300x50x30 cubits (Genesis 6:15), which is about 140x23x13.5 metres or 459x75x44 feet, so its volume was 43,500 m3 (cubic metres) or 1.54 million cubic feet. To put this in perspective, this is the equivalent volume of 522 standard American railroad stock cars, each of which can hold 240 sheep.
If the animals were kept in cages with an average size of 50x50x30 centimetres (20x20x12 inches), that is 75,000 cm3 (cubic centimetres) or 4800 cubic inches, the 16,000 animals would only occupy 1200 m3 (42,000 cubic feet) or 14.4 stock cars. Even if a million insect species had to be on board, it would not be a problem, because they require little space. If each pair was kept in cages of 10 cm (four inches) per side, or 1000 cm3, all the insect species would occupy a total volume of only 1000 m3, or another 12 cars. This would leave room for five trains of 99 cars each for food, Noah’s family and ‘range’ for the animals. However, insects are not included in the meaning of behemah or remes in Genesis 6:19-20, so Noah probably would not have taken them on board as passengers anyway.

Tabulating the total volume is fair enough, since this shows that there would be plenty of room on the Ark for the animals with plenty left over for food, range etc. It would be possible to stack cages, with food on top or nearby (to minimize the amount of food carrying the humans had to do), to fill up more of the Ark space, while still allowing plenty of room for gaps for air circulation. We are discussing an emergency situation, not necessarily luxury accommodation. Although there is plenty of room for exercise, skeptics have overstated animals’ needs for exercise anyway.

Even if we don’t allow stacking one cage on top of another to save floor space, there would be no problem. Woodmorappe shows from standard recommended floor space requirements for animals that all of them together would have needed less than half the available floor space of the Ark’s three decks. This arrangement allows for the maximum amount of food and water storage on top of the cages close to the animals.

To completely answer your question, here's the link explaining everything in detail.
Noah's Ark

Ok, but shouldn't they have been destroyed in the flood? Or have they evolved in the amount of time since then? Thank you for replying by the way, I'm not trying to poke fun at you, just trying to understand your logic.