Noah's Ark

[Oh Hamburgers!]

What natural laws were broken?

Well, I'll try to break down the things that made it impossible to happen without divine help.

- it would have taken years upon years to

a) harvest the lumber needed for the Ark

b) move the lumber to a single area

c) gather the supplies needed to fix the lumber together

d) draw out a blueprint/mapping of the Ark

e) actually assemble the Ark as one man/family.

This alone, given the fact Noah was the only one really doing it, would have taken at that time more than an entire lifespan of an average man. In all practical senses this is an impossible task for one person to attempt, and even with a fully organized crew creating a ship of this magnitude it would have taken probably 5-10 years plus. Noah would have had to been going on creating this boat for well over 40 years. Granted, Noah was supposedly 900 years old, and that alone is divine intervention. No man today can be 900 years old, and no man today could create an ark of such proportions as Noah did in the course of one's lifetime, given the tools and the resources one would have had at that time in history.

The creation of the ark itself needed divine help.

The age of Noah needed divine help.

Assembling all animals around the world would have needed divine help.

There are TONS of animals today, and even if the idea of micro evolution is accepted, there would have still been tons. Imagine gathering 2 of every animal today, and bringing them to a big ship by yourself. How on earth would you manage this? You would need to develop leashes/cages/traps etc today in order to wrangle all these animals in. And animals today are not too keen on being taken out of their homes. So tack on another 5-10 years to gather the materials to create these harnesses/crates for the animals, and another 40-50 years of effort in gathering all these animals up from different parts of the globe and bringing them to the ark, if it would even be possible. Without divine help, this would be an impossible task for a man. Therefore, God had to have done something to make it easier to get the animals/make them come to Noah.

So once Noah actually builds the ark, and somehow brings all these animals inside of it, the rain starts. First off the Ark must have had some sort of water-proof cover on it, otherwise the rain would have poured into the ark itself. So don't forget this ship was extremely complex. Again, without a proper crew, and without proper tools, this would have taken just as long as making the boat of the Ark itself. And this is one guy we are talking about that is creating all of this.

Incidentally, don't forget that this has taken close to 100 years in planning, gathering and coordinating, unless God pressed the easy button for Noah and *poof* created a boat for him or something. What about the rest of his family? I don't remember if they had unnatural long life either, but if they didn't, they would have been dead long before the Ark was made, without divine inspiration. So there's another scientific impossibility without the hand of God.

Ok so now comes the feeding, which I didn't even mention before. Noah had to stock food for all these different animals to eat and drink for over a YEAR, and make sure they didn't eat eachother. He had to go around feeding these animals, which has been discussed earlier as being a FULL-TIME JOB. You would need to constantly be feeding the animals. It would have also taken several years to accumulate and store the vast amounts of different foods needed by many of the different animals. And again, Noah would have had to be constantly feeding the animals in rapid-fire fashion to keep them nourished. This is ripe with divine intervention if such a story is true.

So given all this happens, think about the vast amount of water on the planet. Where exactly did it go?? It didn't just evaporate, that would have taken even LONGER than all of the other things we have gone over. And if it did evaporate, we would still have all this precipitation in the clouds today, WAAAY more water than we actually have. I mean, think about how much water would be needed to cover the globe in water, enough water to keep an Ark of this magnitude afloat and above the mountains. This is a LOOOOOOOOT of water. In order for this water to somehow disappear, God would have had to make the water vanish without a trace. Another natural law broken.

And finally, provided that all of these animals survived the year, repopulating an entire planet, and returning all of these animals to their proper lands would have taken thousands of years to be robust in population, Much more time than young earth creationists would believe the world is old. God would have had to make these animals super-fertile, and popping out the young in an extremely quick fashion, and these babies would have had to grow up and have more babies extremely quickly. Think rabbits in hyperspeed, that is what would be required. Today this is impossible looking at the animals around now. Another instance where divine intervention was necessary.

I'm sure I have missed plenty of areas of contention, but I hope you get the point. The long and the short of it is there are two ways to look at the story of Noah's Ark.

1) God can do anything, so God performed countless miracles to make everything happen according to the literal translation of the Bible, OR:

2) The story is not factual, at least not in a literal sense.

You cannot ever make a solid scientific arguement with evidence that this could actually happen without a supreme deity. Either the story isn't real, or God performed tons of miracles to make it happen. (and I mean TONS of miracles).

I am of the opinion that the story is not a literal depiction of actual events, I believe it is a story used in the Bible to explain the origins of parts of creation, and is used to show God's love for Noah and His people after his wrath.

[hatsoff]

Actualy it makes sence, we populated with only two specimens. Ya see reproduction though very complex to explain how it happened, and is impossible to explain in darwins theory, we all are here through reproduction, two species of every animal could repopulate the world, ya I strongly believe this, within thousands and thousands of years, it is very possible. And divine intervention, ya it always is on multiple levels, even now. the reason why we're here, and we are alive.

It only makes sense if you ignore certain realities. Let's have a single example: the meerkat (S. suricatta). They eat desert region insects, mostly land-dwelling, digging in the earth for their prey. They have very little body fat, which prevents them from living long without food. They average about three or four pups per litter--pups which indirectly require food prior to birth. Genetics aside, how do you suppose this species repopulated from two individuals, when all other land-dwelling "kinds" were limited to 2 or 7 individuals?

I had wished to show exactly how many individuals are usually required to repopulate a mammalian species, but I have not come up with an answer. Common sense tells me (and should tell you) it is much, much more than two. But perhaps you have an easier job: I asked if there was even one species (or "kind," if you will) capable of repopulating from two specimens. Can you give an example?

Edited March 12, 2007 by hatsoff

[Guest Mike_FL]

It happened and it happened exactly as the scriptures say it happened.

AMEN. Why must the Word of God be questioned? If it was possible for Jesus to resurrected, it was possible for God to make the whole ark story the truth. And it is the truth for the Bible tells us so. Nothing in the Word of God is fiction.

Amen to that!! Keep in mind folks, we are talking about God here, and with Him, anything is possible. He is not hampered by logistics.

[Floatingaxe]

Is this the same G-d that caused Elijah the go in the strength of one meal for 40 days and nights?

Yes, the same loving god that allowed 42 kids to be mauled for name calling.

You use the term loving G-d as one who is a stranger to the G-d of love. As ArthurPink wrote:

The Divine love is commonly regarded as a species of amiable weakness, a sort of good-natured indulgence ; it is reduced to a mere sickly sentiment, patterened after human emotion.

Blessings, H.

My life observation:

Our nature is to prevent the destruction of a child. To teach us morals, we are delivered the standards not by the God's words alone but what has been instilled in us naturally that women and children are first. Therefore, there are no circumstances where the destruction of a child is not evil.

So someone with all knowledge who chooses to destroy a child chooses to do evil. And that someone is Elijah. He murdered his master and took his staff of power. Killed a bunch of kids who made fun of him and he told a different story to a man with a penmanship. And now you good folks believe him hook, line and sinker. Pretty sad really. Oh yeah...God did it hallauyia

It was Elisha!

You don't mess with the anointed of God and live to tell about it! God takes that seriously! He is merciful right now because of Jesus' blood, but when that Day comes, you can be sure that all jeerers will be executed.

[Guest lnj]

Let's talk about the Ark. This is always something I've had trouble taking literally but there must be some way to do it.

I'm interested in hearing about the logistics involved in keeping seven individuals of every terrestial animal species on a wooden boat for 150 days. Space, food, waste, water. How would it work? And were any of the dinosaurs on board?

The understanding I have is that the animals were "young", there were not the number of animal groups as there are now eg: the offshoots of people groups NOW as opposed to the original people groups of the world ( same in the animal world) and that the ark was triple decked and the size of a football field.

I can see the logic and credibility of the Ark story.

[emeraldgirl]

He merely had to bring enough animals to have enough diversification to produce the animals we have now.

Although one wonders why God, who created all animals with a spoken word, would need to have Noah go to miraculous lengths to spare all the necessary animals.

[Guest lnj]

He merely had to bring enough animals to have enough diversification to produce the animals we have now.

Although one wonders why God, who created all animals with a spoken word, would need to have Noah go to miraculous lengths to spare all the necessary animals.

True.

But what an AMAZING eye witness account of Gods Awesomeness that Noah and his family could tell to the 3rd and 4th generation.....

[hatsoff]

God did provide help, but I can not see where he actually broke a natural law.

Most people believe Noah worked on the Ark 120 years. Due to several dating issues, It is my personal opinion the number is more like 50.

I don't think most people think about it in those terms. Back when I was Christian, it never crossed my mind, and nobody ever brought it up.

God plainly provided plans to Noah, but that did not break a natural law.

God called the animals to board the ark. Again, super natural help, but not a violation of natural law. There is not a natural law that says an animal can not of its own volition walk onto a ship.

I agree whole heartedly that God was definitely active in the Ark, animals, and flood. However, I do not see where He violated any natural law with reference to the ark or the animals.

Parting the Red sea, I would say violated a natural law. I guess I would entertain the Idea that the flood itsself might have violated natural law. However, many secular scientists have posed models as how a worldwide flood could occur from severe catastrophies happening in unison. God caused the flood, but I would not go so far to say He violated a natural law in doing it.

Where did the water go? Into the ground. Water table, underground lakes, streams, rivers.

The supernatural is by definition a violation of natural law. If God did *anything*, it is a violation. Also, science *is* secular; so, mentioning "secular scientists" is a bit like saying "tall basketball players."

[Guest lnj]

So who created these laws in the first place? The first physicist that's Who. Don't make me laugh...

[The Lorax]

Maybe you hung around ignorant Christians who had little knowledge of the law. Supernatural intervention does not by definition require the violation of natural law. God is supernatural. Any thing dealing with Him is Supernatural. However, everything dealing with Him does not break natural law.

I'm not so sure.

The universe without God is supposed to be a closed system. Overall, all the matter and energy in the universe remains constant, right? So if God intervenes, he is influencing this closed system from the outside, adding (or subtracting) matter and/or energy. From any perspective within the natural universe, this is a violation of natural law.

Obviously I'm just theorizing here, but why do you think Christians who believe such things are ignorant, hr?