A quick way to disprove an aggressive christian

[TunaDragon28]

I am not an aggressive atheist, and I am quite respectful of religion (my mother is Christian), however sometimes I will come across an aggressive Christian, and if their anger at my belief cannot be stunted by polite deflections from their attacks, I may feel forced to attack back.

Because of this, I have found quite a nice way to argue against them with the use of a mayfly. If you aren't aware, mayflies live most of their life in fresh water like ponds and streams, and come into adulthood only for less then a day and then die (Dolania americana's females only live for five minutes). Using the existence of such a creature, I can apply them to the famous 'Noah's Ark' story. Not only does Noah need to keep these things alive for literally 40 times their adult life span, as well as that whole dove searching for land thing which is a few more days, but they need fresh water to lay their eggs. I don't think they had filtered tanks back then.

Actually, you could disprove them just with the flood. There's no chance that God somehow made some of that water fresh and some salt, it's either one or the other. If it's fresh, all sea life is dead. If it's salt, all freshwater life is dead, as well as the impossibility of the dove bringing back a plant from salt-water soaked soil. Plants don't do well with high salinity.

anyway that's two arguments in millions you could use. Again, I rarely use these as I rarely attack at religious people, but sometimes I may feel forced.

[Homeless Nutter]

[...]
Actually, you could disprove them just with the flood. There's no chance that God somehow made some of that water fresh and some salt, it's either one or the other. [...]

Those people believe that god can do ANYTHING. Why wouldn't they think he can keep fresh and salt water separate? Or make the aquatic creatures able to survive regardless of salinity levels? Or have Noah build fish-tanks on the ark, to hold hundreds of thousands of marine species? I mean - he's already supposed to have gathered 8 million species, or so on that thing...

The flood story is ridiculous, as is most sh*t in the bible. But you don't win arguments with believers by pointing that out, because believers see the impossible nature of events described in holy books as just another argument for the greatness of their deities. 
You're dealing with people who believe in magic, which allows them to accept exceptions to any laws of nature.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

The Noah story is a war story. The flood was the swarm of enemy troops throughout the land killing and destroying everything in sight. There was no place they didn't go. Noah and his group were collaborators. The raven, dove, and olive branch are metaphors for war and peace.

If you read the fairy tale you will see that Adam & Eve lived down the road from Assyria and Ethiopia. Those places were alive and well after the "flood" with no ill effect from being covered with water. There's zero evidence that they were ever flooded with water.

[Minimalist]

Left hook followed by a right cross?

[vorlon13]

The pandas dragged all the bamboo they needed to eat on the ark all the way from China, and they had enough leftovers to drag back to China and to sustain them till the bamboo plants could get growing again after the flood.

I'm sure the mayflies would have cooperated too, and brought along whatever they needed to live in the ark.

[TunaDragon28]

Well I've won two arguments with this (or at least stopped them) so meh.

[Jackalope]

Well I've won two arguments with this (or at least stopped them) so meh.

I'm surprised.  I mean, when one's argument depends on the existence of an omnipotent sky wizard, I hardly think that they'd be unwilling to further their appeal to magic.

[ignoramus]

There's literally thousands of examples you can give, eg: endogenous retroviruses, vestigial organs, bad design, the Laryngeal Nerve of the Giraffe, the cheetah dna issue, etc.
But again, if they wanted to know this stuff, they can learn about it. The fact that they don't, tells me they are satisfied with the world as they imagine it in their own minds...
Each to their own.

[robvalue]

I kind of assumed that the majority of christians accept that ridiculous stories like the flood didn't actually happen.

Am I wrong there? Obviously fundamentalists are going to believe it. I doubt many christians in England take it seriously.

Different tactics work with different people. Pointing out massive flaws in the belief system can sometimes be enough to get people to think, which is the key issue. So good job!

[Wyrd of Gawd]

Even the Bible says that people shouldn't believe in Jewish fairy tales.