Summations Only

A good idea. But even its failure would be explained away by the fact that this time around, it lacked divine protection. It always comes back to that.Edited by evolutionfacts, : Spelling error

Is doubletime still around? His posts almost gave me an aneurysm.

Why need robot monkeys when you have an all powerful God as your assistant?Since we're already dealing with a divinely created flood, with God getting and disposing of vast volumes of water from and to, literally, God only knows where...Why not just have more miraculous assistance from God, to construct and keep the ark intact and afloat, and to tend to the needs of the arks contents?What problems can't be overcome by the practical application of miracles?Think of the power of "the divine pooper-scooper".Moose

I try to point out to floodists that God made Noah build his own ark - i.e. Noah was responsible for his own safety. "God did it," might be a convenient catch-all explanation, but that isn't the way the Bible tells it.

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If you have nothing to say, you could have done so much more concisely. -- Dr Adequate

Considering the quality of Manifest's Ark apologetics (e.g in Message 59, to which I was replying), I still contend that the Flying Robot Monkey hypothesis is the more reasonable and parsimonious.I'm just saying.

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I have no time for lies and fantasy, and neither should you. Enjoy or die.
-John Lydon

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Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
-Steven Colbert

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I never meant to say that the Conservatives are generally stupid. I meant to say that stupid people are generally Conservative. I believe that is so obviously and universally admitted a principle that I hardly think any gentleman will deny it.
- John Stuart Mill

And I say, if you're working the realm of a miraculous flood (that worldly evidence says never happened), why not pile on as many miracles as needed?Although a miraculous shrinking down of all animals to mouse size or smaller might be asking too much, even of an all powerful God.Moose

I was really hoping to find a place where we could stay on topic and REALLY discuss true science. I have to say, after lurking for a long time on this forum, that I am disappointed. Instead of bashing each other, why not try to answer and seek knowledge?
Also, if you are going to refute the flood story, at least read the Bible and KNOW what it says instead of regurgitating the talking point on anti-christian websites. We can all do that to each other.

Well, the Flood story is of course totally refuted, it just plain never happened.Whether or not an Ark is possible is totally irrelevant.Here is the absolute refutation based directly on what the Bible claims we MUST see if the flood really happened.

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IIRC I first presented that idea back in 2005 or 2006 and the beauty of it is that it begins by assuming only what the Bible stories say is true and asks, "If true, what must we see?"

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If someone claims that they shot and hit the target, then we must see a hole in the target. If we look at the target and there is no hole, then the claim that the target was hit is falsified.

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The test is also independent of when the flood happened; it does not matter if it was yesterday, 4300 years ago or 200,000 years ago.

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Regardless of when the flood happened the genetic bottleneck would have been at the same time for every surviving species. The population would have been reduced to at best 14 critters of a kind and at worst 4 critters of a kind.

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But wait, there is more...

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one possible way around it has been to invoke some super genome, that the pre-flood genome was somehow different and so allowed for greater variation.

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Well, there are two major problems there.

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First, even if there was some super genome if the Biblical flood stories were true there would still only be at best 14 copies of it to work with and that is still a bottleneck.

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Second, we have genetic evidence from humans that date to before the 4300 years ago date, from as far back as 30,000 years ago and as far back as 14,000 years ago in the Americas and there is no sign of any super-genome.

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I think these two lines of reasoning are pretty solid.

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Here is the detailed description of the first argument (the genetic bottleneck).

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In the version of the myth found in Genesis 6 God instructs Noah to:

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19 You are to bring into the ark two of all living creatures, male and female, to keep them alive with you. 20 Two of every kind of bird, of every kind of animal and of every kind of creature that moves along the ground will come to you to be kept alive. 21 You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them."

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In the version of the myth found in Genesis 7 we see similar (close but not the same) instructions:

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2 Take with you seven of every kind of clean animal, a male and its mate, and two of every kind of unclean animal, a male and its mate, 3 and also seven of every kind of bird, male and female, to keep their various kinds alive throughout the earth.

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We also find similar explanations of what will be destroyed in Genesis 6 it says:

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7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earthmen and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the airfor I am grieved that I have made them."

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and in Genesis 7:

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4 Seven days from now I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights, and I will wipe from the face of the earth every living creature I have made."

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In both myths lots of critters get killed, in the myth found in Genesis 6 it seems to be talking about land animals and birds while the myth found in Genesis 7 goes even further and wipes out all living things.

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If we play mix and match and take the best scenario from each of the myths we might be able to claim that only the birds and land animals were wiped out based on the passage from the Genesis 6 story and that we have the larger saved population found in Genesis 7.

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Based on that mix and match game set we have a situation where all land animals and birds found today will be descended from a population that consisted of at most fourteen critters (seven pairs of clean animals and birds) and at worst case four critters (two pair of unclean animals).

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Now that is what I would call a real bottleneck.

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We know we can see bottlenecks in the genetic record; a great example is the one in Cheetahs but we even see them in the human genome and most other species.

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BUT...

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If the flood actually happened we would see a bottleneck in EVERY species of animal living on the land and EVERY bird and EVERY one of the bottlenecks show up in the SAME historical time period.

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Talk about a big RED flag.

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That bottleneck signature would be something every geneticists in the world would see. It would be like a neon sign, Broadway at midnight on New Years Eve. It would be something even a blind geneticist could see.

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So it seems to me to be a very simple test that will support or refute the Flood.

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If that genetic marker is there in EVERY species living on land or bird of the air, then there is support for the flood. It does not prove the flood happened but it would be very strong support.

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If on the other hand that genetic marker is NOT there, then the Flood is refuted.

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It's not a matter of anyone being anti-Christian; I am a Christian. It's a matter of what is supported by the evidence and the evidence totally refutes any world-wide flood as described in the Bible stories.To claim otherwise is simply to be wrong.

My point is this: people that posted in this thread, brought up numerous arguments that were contrary to the biblical account. We cannot argue apples and oranges and expect to find evidence either way.
Also, I do not know if you are a christian or not. I am simply stating people regurgitate talking points off of anti-christian websites. The hate toward christians is very obvious on many of them, which is why I used the term.
As for bottlenecks, I have seen that before. I will study up on that more, which is why I read this. Not to push my agenda and arrogantly belittle people. I am here to see both sides so I can form a REAL educated opinion on this.

Great, study. Reality though is that the Biblical Flood never happened, the Exodus never happened as described in the Bible, the Conquest of Canaan as described in Joshua is pure fiction...It is not a matter of hate as much as hilarity.

What does being a christian have anything to do with reality?

Welcome to the fray! Let me run some evidence by you and see what you think. This evidence is not from any website, anti-Christian or not. It is from my own research as an archaeologist.Two points that can't be ignored from the flood story: the flood was worldwide, and it occurred during historic times. Biblical scholars generally cite a date about 4,350 years ago.If that story is accurate we should be able to examine sediments of that approximate age and find evidence of a flood, shown by either deposition or erosion. Floods leave distinctive evidence behind and archaeologists and other -ologists are pretty good at deciphering that evidence. (Google "channeled scablands" for some classic examples. Those floods in southern and eastern Washington were limited in area, not global, and about three times older than Noah's flood, but we can see the evidence they left very clearly.)From my own archaeological research in >100 sites, most of which contain sediments about 4,350 years old, I have yet to see evidence of a flood in any of them. This alone disproves the idea of a global flood at about that time. (My colleagues across the country and across the world report similar lack of flood evidence at that time period.)If you disagree with this finding, you can perform your own experiment: a global flood would have left evidence globally, including in your back yard. You can learn some archaeology and sedimentology and check for yourself! It is easier to do in archaeological sites, so perhaps you can take some classes and go on a field school that will be working with a site of the proper age. In any case, you don't have to take my word for it, you can conduct the experiment yourself. But don't get your hopes up. Modern geology developed through efforts to prove the flood occurred, and the folks trying to do that gave up just about 200 years ago.A second line of evidence: In a cave in southern Alaska a skeleton was found and dated to ca. 10,300 years ago. It had a very distinct mtDNA pattern, designated D4h3. That mtDNA has been found in living individuals on the west coasts of both North and South America. This evidence by itself shows that there was no extinction of humans in the intervening time. Rather, we have continuity of that mtDNA pattern where the flood story would require total replacement by a mtDNA pattern spreading out from the Near East. From my own archaeological research I have a similar example of continuity of mtDNA, in this case Haplotype A2, from about 5,300 years ago to the present.I welcome your responses to this evidence.

So why did God write a book packed full of lies and why would you worship such a being? Edited by Adminnemooseus, : Off-topic banner.

You should put together a little Proposed New Topic about the above. The quoted is actually a pretty good topic title.If approved, offhand I think it should go in the "Faith and Belief" forum.Adminnemooseus

I had voted in message 2 to reject this topic. Admin thought otherwise.Now, not that the debate is terrible, but we seem to be getting away from the theme of ark feasibility. Perhaps it was adequately covered early in the topic.Anyway, the side-theme(s) need to find a better home, maybe a new topic.I'm going to set "summation mode" to start at message 115.Adminnemooseus