NOAH AND HIS ARK - PART 2

In PART 1 of Noah And His Ark it was size that mattered, now we explore what we can do with it, if anything.

  Among other questions people have about the ark is; would the ark have been sea worthy? I'm not a ship builder but my Grandfather was and if he was alive today he would probably give me a great run down but as he has long since left us I'll have to investigate this one myself. To start with we have a football sized ship built of wood and was filled with animals and their food. For now lets just take the animals off and try to float this thing...

I'm only going to address the affirmative side of this debate, as the claim that it is seaworthy is the topic. The first stop in this journey is to take a look at AiG (Answers in Genesis). This was something of a hit and miss as after a short search I could only find rebuttals to skeptical blogs, and one in particular called "Feedback: Could Noah's Ark Float Without A Problem?" featuring an attempted debunking by "Froggie" who writes a blog called "A Bushy Tree" and one entry in particular called "More Lies From Ken Ham". I waded through the ad hominem attacks from both sides and, in the beginning at least, AiG seemed to have the information on their side with references for all the claims they made.

That changed quickly after breaking it down. One of the comments made was:

If the ancients couldn't handle big things, what will you do about Stonehenge, Easter Island, Egyptian pyramids, and huge obelisks? Surely, you are not suggesting aliens?

This is coming from a group of people claiming a supernatural god exists and they are poo pooing aliens. For me aliens seem to be a more believable explanation in the portrayal of a "god" than a supernatural answer. Either way this argument is a strawman as AiG has made an assumption on Froggies point. AiG also makes a strawman argument with this statement...

We are not discussing the myths of Noah’s Ark - though there are hundreds of them represented in Flood legends across the globe. Instead we are talking about the real Ark, as discussed in the Scriptures. By the way, you forgot to mention the distortions and obfuscation behind the myth of human evolution.

Even if human evolution is a myth (although evolution is seen throughout the bible) this has nothing to do with the question of the Ark. The argument from authority is also being used here suggesting that all other stories of floods and arks are wrong except for the Biblical Ark because it's part of the scriptures. A case of using the bible to prove the bible.

AiG cites the description of an unidentified ship with Kauri planks of up to forty-five feet in length...

Some of the kauri planks measured forty five feet in length by two feet in width, and the vessel appeared to be double planked suggesting that the vessel may have been built for navigation through the ice.

This is a great example of cherry picked information - the original text reads:

Unidentified. Pre-1800. The bow and portion of the starboard side of a ship more than 100 feet long was discovered by bushwalkers at South-East Cape, west from the Wilsons Promontory lighthouse in 1960. Analysis of her kauri timbers suggested they came from Queensland, Indonesia or New Zealand, whilst the iron recovered could have been manufactured in Birmingham, England before 1800. Some of the kauri planks measured forty five feet in length by two feet in width, and the vessel appeared to be double planked suggesting that the vessel may have been built for navigation through the ice.

That says to me this ship was built with both wood and iron... a big point conveniently missed by Tim Lovett, the author of this rebuttle, who cleverly omits this information to support his argument which is very misleading. The Iron Age started around 1200 B.C.E. Also, there is an assumption here to believe the Ark was double planked. One more point while I'm on this... the unidentified ship sank. Nobody can say whether it was it's maiden voyage or if it had been sailing for many, many years and the suggestion the vessel may have been built for navagation through ice also suggests it was not built for rough weather or major swells which could be the reason for it's demise.

The original blog from Tim Chaffey on AiG is "Feedback: Why are you building the Ark on Land?" which scoots around the question quite convincingly by refocusing on Jesus' sacrifice which has no baring on the Ark. I take exception to:

However, several scientific studies have shown that Noah’s Ark was built to optimal proportions to provide a perfect blend of comfort, strength, and stability.

I could only find one "scientific" study supporting the seaworthiness of the Ark which was tacked on the blog entry "Thinking Outside The Box", the link to which is another page by Tim Lovett. On this page there are links to the original study which don't work so I used my powers of Google to track down the organisations named including KACR, CRISO, MOERI and the scientist Dr Seon Won Hong. To his credit he did link to both KACR and CRISO and mentioned one was a new name of the other and now it's MOERI but neither of the links worked. The only thing I could find was the MOERI website which had no information on this study and the only information I could find on the good Dr was on creationist web sites. The experiment, from the photo, seems to be done with a scale model in a wave tank not a life sized one. The model would easily hold together but when you scale it up the pressures put on it would turn the whole thing to kindling. Perhaps somebody could prove me hypothesis.

I also did a search for any other scientific studies which prove the seaworthiness of the Ark and found... nothing.

I personally do not believe that the Ark, filled with animals, would be very seaworthy at all but I'm not sure about the evidence either way.  I'd be happy to look at any evidence that it existed let alone being seaworthy and for the sake of the next argument lets just assume that it was a real boat and could handle whatever god threw at the world.

Part 3 to come.

I write this blog because it is a passion of mine to explore the myth of god and along the way even I learn some cool stuff but it takes a lot of time and energy to write this blog.  If you enjoy reading this blog please make a donation by clicking the DONATE button on the right so I can put more time into creating a better blog.

Thank you all

Justin

GENESIS 13

Genesis 13 is a scene setting story letting the reader paint the picture in his or her own mind.

GENESIS 13

ABRAM AND LOT SEPARATE

1  So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him.

2  Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.

3  From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier

4  and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord.

"Hi Lord, this is Abram, just checking in. I have arrived with Lot and just waiting further instructions. Lot's being a pain in the ass but I think I can deal with him.

5  Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents.

6  But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together.

7  And quarreling arose between Abram’s herders and Lot’s. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time.

Which is why there was not enough room. Basically Abram and Lot were passive-aggressive invaders of the land.

8  So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are close relatives.

9  Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”

10   Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)

11  So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company:

12  Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom.

Worse choice ever! Well, how was Lot to know that Sodom was to be forever known as the buggering city? 

13  Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord.

14  The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west.

15  All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever. 

16  I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. 

17  Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”

18  So Abram went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he pitched his tents. There he built an altar to the Lord.

And the adventure begins...

GENESIS 12

 If you ever wonder into Egypt with your wife I'll give you two pieces of advice.  1 - watch out for the Syrians and 2 - read Genesis 12

GENESIS 12

THE CALL OF ABRAM

1 The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you.2 “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.

3 I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

Sounds like a good deal to me. It's like a promotion at work but with land.

4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.

5 He took his wife Sarai, his nephew Lot, all the possessions they had accumulated and the people they had acquired in Harran, and they set out for the land of Canaan, and they arrived there.

Good plan, well executed. 

6 Abram traveled through the land as far as the site of the great tree of Moreh at Shechem. At that time the Canaanites were in the land.

7 The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your offspring I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord, who had appeared to him.

8 From there he went on toward the hills east of Bethel and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east. There he built an altar to the Lord and called on the name of the Lord.

9 Then Abram set out and continued toward the Negev.

So if you build an alter to god he will appear. Why has this never been in the news or on YouTube? I'm sure many have tried the alter building thing, even with cameras, yet no god appears so I'm wondering if was just a one off thing. Building an alter to your god for thanks is like giving your girlfriend a rose if your girlfriend was a blow up doll. Sooner or later one of the thorns is going to pop the plastic and she will disapear is a pop of idiocy. 

ABRAM IN EGYPT

10 Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.

Well, if he's not there to help he's adding to the problem...just another mouth to feed.

11 As he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarai, “I know what a beautiful woman you are. 

12 When the Egyptians see you, they will say, ‘This is his wife.’ Then they will kill me but will let you live.

Kind of jumping to conclusions there, aren't we? 

13 Say you are my sister, so that I will be treated well for your sake and my life will be spared because of you.”

Lying - why didn't I think of that? 

14 When Abram came to Egypt, the Egyptians saw that Sarai was a very beautiful woman.

15 And when Pharaoh’s officials saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh, and she was taken into his palace.

16 He treated Abram well for her sake, and Abram acquired sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels.

Wait a minute. Because they thought she was his sister and they wanted a little action, they are offering all sorts of farm animals as payment.

17 But the Lord inflicted serious diseases on Pharaoh and his household because of Abram’s wife Sarai.

Sounds a bit harsh as they didn't know she was a chosen one.

18 So Pharaoh summoned Abram. “What have you done to me?” he said. “Why didn’t you tell me she was your wife?

19 Why did you say, ‘She is my sister,’ so that I took her to be my wife? Now then, here is your wife. Take her and go!”

20 Then Pharaoh gave orders about Abram to his men, and they sent him on his way, with his wife and everything he had.

So, the moral to this story is that you are to lie to your enemy then when they find out you lied tell them they've been punked and you get away scot free. Now that's the kind of education I want my kids to have.

POSTING COMMENTS

After checking the settings on Blogger I realized that not everyone could comment on my blogs so I have changed said settings.  Anybody can comment now, feel free to rant :)

TO MARK THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Says it all

GENESIS 11

OK, readers, let us turn to Genesis 11 in our bibles for some inspiration from god.  This is an interesting chapter, put right smack in the middle on the genealogy section is this story about how all the languages of the world became what they are today... without any linguistic evolution of course.

THE TOWER OF BABEL

1 Now the whole world had one language and a common speech

Makes sense...

2 As people moved eastward, they found a plain in Shinar and settled there.

3 They said to each other, “Come, let’s make bricks and bake them thoroughly.” They used brick instead of stone, and tar for mortar.

...following so far although, their building a tower made of bricks and only held together by tar?  I'm skeptical. 

4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth.”

...and then logic went out the window. What made them think they would be scattered?

5 But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower the people were building.

6 The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.

7 Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”

In other words, god was afraid that they would grow a brain and start asking questions therefore god's rule over humans would be even more fragile.

8 So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city.

God is an asshole!

9 That is why it was called Babel—because there the Lord confused the language of the whole world. From there the Lord scattered them over the face of the whole earth.

Just how did god scatter them over the earth? I can imagine one of three things; a) they were suddenly levitated and flew thousands of miles to a different country or, b) the great big, freaky hand of god which was attached to a great big, freaky, hairy arm of god came down from out of the clouds and man handled them to the different countries of the earth or, c) the "whole earth" consisted of the a fifty mile radius from the centre of some point in the middle east where the writer sat uncomfortably on a bail of hay coming up with a stone age answer to the reason for the different language in the next township.

FROM SHEM TO ABRAM

10 This is the account of Shem’s family line. Two years after the flood, when Shem was 100 years old, he became the father of Arphaxad.

Yeah, more genealogy... just what we needed. This all better have a point to it because it's not helping the authors cause. It's like the writer feels it's important to show mow many thousands of years after the fact when the book was written. It almost as if this book is just a compilation of old legends passed down from father to son.

11 And after he became the father of Arphaxad, Shem lived 500 years and had other sons and daughters.

12 When Arphaxad had lived 35 years, he became the father of Shelah.

13 And after he became the father of Shelah, Arphaxad lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

14 When Shelah had lived 30 years, he became the father of Eber.

15 And after he became the father of Eber, Shelah lived 403 years and had other sons and daughters.

16 When Eber had lived 34 years, he became the father of Peleg.

17 And after he became the father of Peleg, Eber lived 430 years and had other sons and daughters.

18 When Peleg had lived 30 years, he became the father of Reu.

19 And after he became the father of Reu, Peleg lived 209 years and had other sons and daughters.

20 When Reu had lived 32 years, he became the father of Serug.

21 And after he became the father of Serug, Reu lived 207 years and had other sons and daughters.

22 When Serug had lived 30 years, he became the father of Nahor.

23 And after he became the father of Nahor, Serug lived 200 years and had other sons and daughters.

24 When Nahor had lived 29 years, he became the father of Terah.

25 And after he became the father of Terah, Nahor lived 119 years and had other sons and daughters.

26 After Terah had lived 70 years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran.

ABRAM'S FAMILY

27 This is the account of Terah’s family line.

Terah became the father of Abram, Nahor and Haran. And Haran became the father of Lot.

28 While his father Terah was still alive, Haran died in Ur of the Chaldeans, in the land of his birth.

29 Abram and Nahor both married. The name of Abram’s wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor’s wife was Milkah; she was the daughter of Haran, the father of both Milkah and Iskah.

30 Now Sarai was childless because she was not able to conceive.

31 Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai, the wife of his son Abram, and together they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans to go to Canaan. But when they came to Harran, they settled there.

32 Terah lived 205 years, and he died in Harran.

Did anybody actually read all that or did you just skim through it? I know you just skimmed over it because that's what I did.

GENESIS 10

Between moving house and settling in to a new city I haven't really had time to keep up on my blogs, not to mention trying to decide whether to write about some particular passage which seems to have no baring on anything... perhaps skipping them so I can get to the real juicy chapters of the bible but, that wouldn't be very thorough. Perhaps I can eek a little insight out of even the most boring of verses in this book, so it begins with all the begatting...

When I was younger this was the part in the bible I thought was a real page turner; it was so boring I just kept turning the page until the next chapter. 

GENESIS 10

THE TABLE OF NATIONS

1 This is the account of Shem, Ham and Japheth, Noah’s sons, who themselves had sons after the flood.

THE JAPHETHITES

2 The sons of Japheth:

Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshek and Tiras.

3 The sons of Gomer:

Ashkenaz, Riphath and Togarmah.

4 The sons of Javan:

Elishah, Tarshish, the Kittites and the Rodanites.

5 (From these the maritime peoples spread out into their territories by their clans within their nations, each with its own language.)

THE HAMITES

6 The sons of Ham:

Cush, Egypt, Put and Canaan.

7 The sons of Cush:

Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah and Sabteka.

The sons of Raamah:

Sheba and Dedan.

8 Cush was the father of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on the

earth.

Wait... Nimrod? Seriously?

9 He was a mighty hunter before theLord; that is why it is said, “Like Nimrod, mighty hunter before the Lord.”

10 The first centers of his kingdom were Babylon, Uruk, Akkad and Kalneh, in Shinar.

11 From that land he went to Assyria, where he built Nineveh,Rehoboth Ir, Calah

12 and Resen, which is between Nineveh and Calah—which is the great city.

13 Egypt was the father of the Ludites, Anamites, Lehabites, aphtuhites,

15 Canaan was the father of

Sidon his firstborn, and of the Hittites, 

16 Jebusites, Amorites, Girgashites, 

17 Hivites, Arkites, Sinites,

18 Arvadites, Zemarites and Hamathites.  Later the Canaanite clans scattered 

19 and the borders of Canaan reached from Sidon toward Gerar as far as Gaza, and then toward Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboyim, as far as Lasha.

20 These are the sons of Ham by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations.  The Semites

21 Sons were also born to Shem, whose older brother was Japheth; Shem was the ancestor of all the sons of Eber.

22 The sons of Shem:

Elam, Ashur, Arphaxad, Lud and Aram.

23 The sons of Aram:

Uz, Hul, Gether and Meshek.

24 Arphaxad was the father of Shelah,

and Shelah the father of Eber.

25 Two sons were born to Eber:

One was named Peleg, because in his time the earth was divided; his brother was named Joktan.

26 Joktan was the father of Almodad, Sheleph, Hazarmaveth, Jerah, 

27 Hadoram, Uzal, Diklah, 

28 Obal, Abimael, Sheba, 

29 Ophir, Havilah and Jobab. All these were sons of Joktan.

30 The region where they lived stretched from Mesha toward Sephar, in the eastern hill country.

31 These are the sons of Shem by their clans and languages, in their territories and nations.

32 These are the clans of Noah’s sons, according to their lines of descent, within their nations. From these the nations spread out over the earth after the flood.

Blah, blah, blah.  I know this goes someway towards explaining, biblically, the genealogy for all the races in the world etc, but... but it doesn't actually explain how our species got all the races of the world in around 6,000 years.  From all the information I have to hand we have adapted (evolved) to suit the kind of climate we settled in over the last 195,000 years, which is a sod of a long time!  I'm sure it can be said that we can't relate to any length of time over 50-60 years from which is borne an argument from personal incredulity, a logical fallacy.  This logical fallacy can be so much a part of the believers believing in an invisible man in the sky that, despite mountains of growing evidence to the contrary, they can't accept that their adopted form of dogma is both pointless and wrong...yawn.

  I used to be spiritual, heck, I used to be a christian so I know what I am talking about.  When we find something that makes sense of the senseless you will try to take any small thing and make it a proof, or a grasp at straws, of your own beliefs.  At some point you have to just man up and accept the evidence put before you.  Hard, solid evidence.  Problems are more easily solved with science so invoking some supernatural being to be the answer you can't find is an uphill battle fought by lazy thinkers, inventive but lazy. 

  In short, I have nothing against believers, each to their own.  However, when a believer does something stupid in the name of, or because of, their god,  I have a problem.  Anyone can have an imaginary friend, I have no problem with that, it's a little kooky but, whatever.  If their imaginary friend tells them to do things, shit will hit the fan... and medication should be considered.  

Thank you for reading, if you liked it please follow my blog.  If you would like to donate so I can bring you of the same thing please click the donate button on the right.

Thank you 

Justin