(March 18, 2012 at 7:30 pm)Norfolk And Chance Wrote:(March 18, 2012 at 7:08 pm)Drich Wrote:(March 15, 2012 at 9:21 am)Mosrhun Wrote: We all know this story is bullshit, but I just had a debate with a Christian about this issue and it's still fresh on my mind so here it goes. A foreword, math is not my strong point and this was a quick write up as I'm currently at work, so if someone more mathematically inclined would like to fix my values go right ahead.
As of 2010, there are 1.7 million known species on Earth. Let's give the Christians the benefit of the doubt and remove Fish (31,300), Crustaceans (47,000), Corals (2,175) and Algae (13,201). Let's also condense the insects down to say, 25,000 from 1,000,000 for space sake. This lowers to number of species to a paltry 631,324. Double that and you have 1,262,648 animals. Each animal requires it's own space and it's own food to survive for 40 days and 40 nights. Some animals are much larger then others and some are much smaller. To reach an easy medium of space needed, let's say that all these animals need approximately the space and food a human would need. A human could survive for a little over a month in say, a 6x4' (24sq ft) room or so. Using this logic, the Ark would have needed to be 30,303,552sq feet just to store the animals. That's 1.08699sq miles. This is before you take in to account the amount of food and fresh water needed to sustain all these animals. Now obviously the boat would have been boat shaped and not a square. If you just take the 6 foot rooms needed and multiply it by the number of species you end up with a ship that is 1434 miles long, almost half the distance across the United States...
It's ridiculous to think that Noah would have been able to build something this massive, gather all these creatures, gather all the supplies, keep 1,262,648 fed and hydrated and managed to clean the feces from said animals several times a day.
If you are trying to make sense of the story of Noah as a logistical account of how to save the planet and the various species from ELI like a global flood, then you miss the whole point of the story. The logistical account is lacking for one reason. The story of Noah was not about one man defying God and saved the planet through his planning and efforts. The Story of Noah and the boat He built was the story of the extraordinary faith that was required of one man, to deem creation salvageable. Noah did not save creation through His efforts (his boat) Noah provided the faith that prompted God to save a remnant from righteous wrath.
so the same God that call creation into existence, call the animals to the Ark, sustained them on the Ark, had them repopulated their original habitats. Understand the ark was not the boat Noah built. It was the faith that fueled the whole effort. Remember Noah did not save creation though his efforts, God did.
Which animals did Noah not bother putting on the boat? I mean there are billions of species, and billions is a big number of species to collect - it would take comfortably longer than Noah's lifespan to even collect a fraction of them. Do you think maybe he rescued cute tiger cubs, and fluffy puppies, and baby giraffes, and missed out maggots, moths and stick insects?
Why bother putting anything on the Ark? god could have simply created them all again.
Complete waste of time if you ask me.
Well the last time I went to the zoo I do not see dragons, unicorns, pixies, saber tooth tigers or mammoths.. The list can go on if you like.
To the second point you made, Noah did not collect even one animal. According to the account in Genesis God brought all of the "salvageable animals" to him. As far as why? again this is not a tale of logistics. This is a story about faith. That said you are right in that God could have created everything again, and who is to say He did not back fill a few gaps.. But if He simply started over rather than make the effort to stress the importance of Faith, much would be lost in the understanding of Christ works on the cross.
