FT Magazine on AIG's Ark project

Pitch burns really well

The ark didn't come in touch with fire of coarse.
The ark was a floating box and not a boat. Like the ark of the covenant. That was the point about keeping a promise alive of eventual justice.
By cross examination its wonderfully well documented that mankind collectively believed there had been a great flood that destroyed everything.
The further you go back to written sources about ancient peoples origin stories the common thread is that originally there was this great flood.
Just as it found be if it had been true. it would dominate a peoples memory.
It there was no such stories then deniers would have a good point about why no story of such a great event!
The Chinese , America's iNdians, Greeks, and Mesopotamia , and so on all record this common story.
In fact it could only be this way and is sooooo pregnant that it was a historical event.

Therefore all creatures fossilized below the k-t line, this YEC'ers boundary, were killed and covered within the first days/weeks of the great flood. every dinosaur ever found in fossil form was alive when Noah entered the ark.
Fossils are telling a great story of a sudden great covering and a strange type of planet before the flood.
Its a great point to YEC to stress how all the planet is covered by sedimentary rock(75%) and this as evidence of the great flood and the origin of it. thus the fossils laid at once and there they are documenting a strange earth by present standards.
finally the bible , Gods witness in good standing, says this is what happened.
I insist and assure that the Ark did sail the ocean blue.
This is why so many people believe this is true especially in North America.
Its persuasive.
Its very interesting.

Robert Byers said: The ark didn't come in touch with fire of coarse.

terenzioiltroll said:

Robert Byers said: The ark didn't come in touch with fire of coarse.

Fine!

Dave Thomas said:

terenzioiltroll said:

Robert Byers said: The ark didn't come in touch with fire of coarse.

Fine!

Double or nothing Byers doesn't get this.

Robert Byers said: The ark didn't come in touch with fire of coarse.

Hmmmm....

So while reading the article I was to learn that building the pseudo-ark will cost $73 million dollars.

Now, why might that be?

Well, much of that probably goes to buying materials (lumber, steel, cement, etc) and labor (dozens of carpenters and builders operating heavy machinery) all to prove building the Ark was possible.

Somehow, I don't remember Genesis saying to Noah "get thee to the lumber yard with your Bobcat, and hire thee a couple dozen laborers who are good with a miter saw and a welder or two while you're at it".

My modest proposal, at the entrance to the Ark there should be a list of the names of all the labor they used, plus the power tools, plus pictures of the cranes, and a tally of the weight of dressed trees that came in a dimensional lumber. And maybe a picture of the construction cranes. Just to demonstrate how Noah might do it.

If the water that covered the highest mountains came from outer space, the rate of energy deposition over a 40-day period would have been about 400 megatons of TNT per second per square meter of the Earth’s surface (including the surface of the ark).

If you don’t like that scenario and would like to believe the water came up from the lithosphere, then there was all that superheated water that had been in contact with temperatures on the order of the softening temperature of olivine, or roughly 1000 degrees Celsius.

If you don’t like either of the above scenarios and would like to believe the lithosphere simply slid around and scrunched up the continents and dug the ocean basins, then you will be dealing with energies even larger. It’s not easy to push around that much olivine and reconfigure the entire surface of the Earth in just 40 days.

The pitch would have vaporized pretty quickly; as would everything else.

Mike Elzinga said: If the water that covered the highest mountains came from outer space, the rate of energy deposition over a 40-day period would have been about 400 megatons of TNT per second per square meter of the Earth’s surface (including the surface of the ark). If you don’t like that scenario and would like to believe the water came up from the lithosphere, then there was all that superheated water that had been in contact with temperatures on the order of the softening temperature of olivine, or roughly 1000 degrees Celsius. If you don’t like either of the above scenarios and would like to believe the lithosphere simply slid around and scrunched up the continents and dug the ocean basins, then you will be dealing with energies even larger. It’s not easy to push around that much olivine and reconfigure the entire surface of the Earth in just 40 days. The pitch would have vaporized pretty quickly; as would everything else.

Robert Byers said: The ark didn't come in touch with fire of coarse. The ark was a floating box and not a boat. Like the ark of the covenant. That was the point about keeping a promise alive of eventual justice. By cross examination its wonderfully well documented that mankind collectively believed there had been a great flood that destroyed everything. The further you go back to written sources about ancient peoples origin stories the common thread is that originally there was this great flood. Just as it found be if it had been true. it would dominate a peoples memory. It there was no such stories then deniers would have a good point about why no story of such a great event! The Chinese , America's iNdians, Greeks, and Mesopotamia , and so on all record this common story. In fact it could only be this way and is sooooo pregnant that it was a historical event. Therefore all creatures fossilized below the k-t line, this YEC'ers boundary, were killed and covered within the first days/weeks of the great flood. every dinosaur ever found in fossil form was alive when Noah entered the ark. Fossils are telling a great story of a sudden great covering and a strange type of planet before the flood. Its a great point to YEC to stress how all the planet is covered by sedimentary rock(75%) and this as evidence of the great flood and the origin of it. thus the fossils laid at once and there they are documenting a strange earth by present standards. finally the bible , Gods witness in good standing, says this is what happened. I insist and assure that the Ark did sail the ocean blue. This is why so many people believe this is true especially in North America. Its persuasive. Its very interesting.

phhht said: Well Dr Smartypants, but see it wasn't water! It was blood! All from Väinämöinen's toe! Checkmate!

It isn't just the Ark that is bought for the $73 million. It's the whole shebang. And they're hiring Amish carpenters, who are among the few now able to erect large timber structures without steel fastenings, using notching, joining and pegging.

My grandfather would have had a field day. He was trained as a joiner when joinery meant "you don't use nails or screws", and he always used to express deep contempt for what is now called "carpentry". No doubt the Amish will do a good job. Provided, of course, that the structure is bedded in concrete, thoroughly braced externally, and never has to contend with the shifting stresses of working in a seaway, or with warping and differential shrinkage and expansion rates that are inseparable from being partly immersed.

Floating boxes, now. I wonder if Byers has ever wondered why ships are not "floating boxes"?

Nah. That would require intellectual curiosity.

"That would require intellectual curiosity."

So you are saying that Byers loses twice. I have to agree.

Breaking Science News From AIG Laboratories !

Did Death of any Kind Exist Before the Fall?

Inquiring minds want to know !

Get your own copy hot off the presses from Answers Research Journal !

Did Death of any Kind Exist Before the Fall?

Rikki_Tikki_Taalik said: Breaking Science News From AIG Laboratories ! Did Death of any Kind Exist Before the Fall? Inquiring minds want to know ! Get your own copy hot off the presses from Answers Research Journal !

stevaroni said: Hmmmm.... So while reading the article I was to learn that building the pseudo-ark will cost $73 million dollars. Now, why might that be? Well, much of that probably goes to buying materials (lumber, steel, cement, etc) and labor (dozens of carpenters and builders operating heavy machinery) all to prove building the Ark was possible. Somehow, I don't remember Genesis saying to Noah "get thee to the lumber yard with your Bobcat, and hire thee a couple dozen laborers who are good with a miter saw and a welder or two while you're at it". My modest proposal, at the entrance to the Ark there should be a list of the names of all the labor they used, plus the power tools, plus pictures of the cranes, and a tally of the weight of dressed trees that came in a dimensional lumber. And maybe a picture of the construction cranes. Just to demonstrate how Noah might do it.

Robert Byers said: The ark was a floating box and not a boat. Like the ark of the covenant.

Atram-Hasis, a Sumerian king who lived before the flood and who is the Noah figure in earlier versions of the ark story. His god speaks to him as follows ... "Wall, wall! Reed wall, reed wall! Atram-Hasis, pay heed to my advice, that you may live forever! Destroy your house, build a boat; despise possessions And save life! Draw out the boat that you will built with a circular design; Let its length and breadth be the same." The tablet goes on to command the use of plaited palm fibre, waterproofed with bitumen, before the construction of cabins for the people and wild animals. It ends with the dramatic command of Atram-Hasis to the unfortunate boat builder whom he leaves behind to meet his fate, about sealing up the door once everyone else is safely inside ... "When I shall have gone into the boat, Caulk the frame of the door!"

Robert Byers said: By cross examination its wonderfully well documented that mankind collectively believed there had been a great flood that destroyed everything. The further you go back to written sources about ancient peoples origin stories the common thread is that originally there was this great flood. Just as it found be if it had been true. it would dominate a peoples memory. It there was no such stories then deniers would have a good point about why no story of such a great event! The Chinese , America's iNdians, Greeks, and Mesopotamia , and so on all record this common story. In fact it could only be this way and is sooooo pregnant that it was a historical event.

Robert Byers said: Therefore all creatures fossilized below the k-t line, this YEC'ers boundary, were killed and covered within the first days/weeks of the great flood. every dinosaur ever found in fossil form was alive when Noah entered the ark. Fossils are telling a great story of a sudden great covering and a strange type of planet before the flood. Its a great point to YEC to stress how all the planet is covered by sedimentary rock(75%) and this as evidence of the great flood and the origin of it. thus the fossils laid at once and there they are documenting a strange earth by present standards.

Among other matters, it has been explained ad nauseum to Robert Byers that the "k-t line" is an obsolete term. Yet he still parrots the "k-t line" anyway. Not that this is a surprise.

Anyway, for anyone else that is interested...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_boundary

Robert, please do both yourself and all of us a favor, click this link
Black Sea.

Or google "flooding of the black sea", and you will find huge amounts of information you did't know existed.

Then continue using Google to learn more about the Gilgamesh Flood Myth, and all the other things you know nothing about.

Yours - and therefore our problem, is that you are very ignorant and don't make the slightest effort at educating yourself.

The fact is, you can use Google and Wikipedia to learn all about all the things you know nothing about, which in your case amounts to almost everything worth knowing.

I should mention for Roberts benefit that I don't think anyone believes that the story of Noah was pure fabrication. Like any tale it grows from a simple to a more complex story, the characters change, and new elements are adopted or changed with the progression. Many of them may well have a real but less grandiose event, a real person or composite of persons, and often real historical locations behind them. It would also be no surprise that a large enough event would indeed be the origin of parallel stories, but certainly this cannot be stretched as far as Roberts sources would have one believe. Flood stories do abound but they cannot be connected so casually as they are in this case.

To pick a random character and fable, Robin Hood, as far as I know it's thought that there may well have been a real person or a composite of characters behind the fable that got only better as it was told in taverns and inns. I don't think anyone would be surprised to find that Noah's tale has a real but local event like the one discussed in the Black Sea document Rolf just linked to. One can easily imagine what it would be like for a more primitive people, most of whom likely never ventured more than several or tens of miles from their place of birth. For them it would have seemed as if the whole world had flooded and from their frame of reference indeed it had.

Seriously Robert, at least make an honest attempt to read the Wiki link on the Gilgamesh flood that Rolf has provided.

Rolf, I haven't had the time to read through the Cahill document but I find it very interesting and definitely will. Thank you for that and for posting the more appropriate link to the Gilgamesh flood mythology available on Wikipedia as well.

While I'm at it, thank you Tenncrain for the link on Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. I'd seen it commented on in the past when the K-T has been mentioned but never pursued the info on it. I'll be reading that and perhaps more when I get the free time.

The problem is that in order to believe in a young earth and a world wide flood, you pretty much HAVE TO REMAIN IGNORANT of all of the evidence. Once you let a little flicker of doubt penetrate the total darkness you begin to see things all around you that you never noticed before. Robert can't even be bothered to learn basic grammar, even after being corrected on the exact same mistake dozens of times. There is no way that he is ever going to try to examine any evidence and no way that it is ever going to convince him of anything even if he does screw up the courage to confront reality. I am sure that the only reason he is allowed to post here is to serve as an example of the degeneracy of the creationist mindset. (Of coarse I meant a loud).

Reality has left Robert behind. Fortunately, reality doesn't care what he thinks.

Yeah, I know you're right DS and that I'm on a fool's errand. As aggravated as we become with him I can't help but feel a little sorry for him. Mostly because in a number of categories he's the polar opposite of straight up ankle-biters like FL or Ray. Ray is really flourishing over at Talk Rational lately. With Robert, I don't feel like the few times I bother to engage him is a total loss as I usually learn something new from others. It also sharpens my arguments I may have elsewhere with those that actually can be reached. Perhaps there's some value in potentially affecting the onlookers. Perhaps I'm full of it and fooling myself. *shrug*

Have I ever mentioned that when I think about the Chixulub impact I get this Buscemi-esque delight imagining being able to view the event unfold from a safe distance? Albeit without all the thermonuclear weapon humping.

Nearly everybody is willing to give up on a strict reading of the Bible on some subjects when it conflicts with modern understanding. One example is the Genesis story of Joseph in Egypt and the world-wide famine. I doubt that anyone today would insist that when the Bible says that people came from all the realms of the world to get grain from Egypt, one must believe that Australia and Alaska were being fed from Egypt's storage.

Rikki_Tikki_Taalik said: ...a more primitive people, most of whom likely never ventured more than several or tens of miles from their place of birth.

Henry J said:

Did Death of any Kind Exist Before the Fall?

Is there a distinct layer of dead bodies at about the right place in the geological column, and a complete absence of dead bodies in any layer older than that? ;)

Rikki_Tikki_Taalik said: Yeah, I know you're right DS and that I'm on a fool's errand. As aggravated as we become with him I can't help but feel a little sorry for him. Mostly because in a number of categories he's the polar opposite of straight up ankle-biters like FL or Ray. Ray is really flourishing over at Talk Rational lately. With Robert, I don't feel like the few times I bother to engage him is a total loss as I usually learn something new from others. It also sharpens my arguments I may have elsewhere with those that actually can be reached. Perhaps there's some value in potentially affecting the onlookers. Perhaps I'm full of it and fooling myself. *shrug* Have I ever mentioned that when I think about the Chixulub impact I get this Buscemi-esque delight imagining being able to view the event unfold from a safe distance? Albeit without all the thermonuclear weapon humping.

Rikki_Tikki_Taalik said:

Henry J said:

Did Death of any Kind Exist Before the Fall?

Is there a distinct layer of dead bodies at about the right place in the geological column, and a complete absence of dead bodies in any layer older than that? ;)

Current creation science has determined that at one time that was probably the case. However the post flood hydro-sorti-misation hydro-sorti-mated them. It's a jumble out there.

Henry J said:

Did Death of any Kind Exist Before the Fall?

Is there a distinct layer of dead bodies at about the right place in the geological column, and a complete absence of dead bodies in any layer older than that? ;)

stevaroni said: Donkeys, dinosaurs and Douglas firs should all be found in great heaping piles in the ancestral deep valleys of the world, and any carbon dating you do on them should agree within a few weeks. So... Byers, is this what we see?

Dave Luckett said: It isn't just the Ark that is bought for the $73 million. It's the whole shebang. And they're hiring Amish carpenters, who are among the few now able to erect large timber structures without steel fastenings, using notching, joining and pegging. My grandfather would have had a field day. He was trained as a joiner when joinery meant "you don't use nails or screws", and he always used to express deep contempt for what is now called "carpentry". No doubt the Amish will do a good job. Provided, of course, that the structure is bedded in concrete, thoroughly braced externally, and never has to contend with the shifting stresses of working in a seaway, or with warping and differential shrinkage and expansion rates that are inseparable from being partly immersed. Floating boxes, now. I wonder if Byers has ever wondered why ships are not "floating boxes"? Nah. That would require intellectual curiosity.

prongs said: And it uses NO PITCH. Now that's a cop-out. Where's the pitch? WHERE'S ALL THE PITCH?

Tenncrain said: Among other matters, it has been explained ad nauseum to Robert Byers that the "k-t line" is an obsolete term. Yet he still parrots the "k-t line" anyway. Not that this is a surprise. Anyway, for anyone else that is interested... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cretaceous%E2%80%93Paleogene_boundary

Rolf said: Robert, please do both yourself and all of us a favor, click this link Black Sea. Or google "flooding of the black sea", and you will find huge amounts of information you did't know existed. Then continue using Google to learn more about the Gilgamesh Flood Myth, and all the other things you know nothing about. Yours - and therefore our problem, is that you are very ignorant and don't make the slightest effort at educating yourself. The fact is, you can use Google and Wikipedia to learn all about all the things you know nothing about, which in your case amounts to almost everything worth knowing.

Rikki_Tikki_Taalik said: I should mention for Roberts benefit that I don't think anyone believes that the story of Noah was pure fabrication. Like any tale it grows from a simple to a more complex story, the characters change, and new elements are adopted or changed with the progression. Many of them may well have a real but less grandiose event, a real person or composite of persons, and often real historical locations behind them. It would also be no surprise that a large enough event would indeed be the origin of parallel stories, but certainly this cannot be stretched as far as Roberts sources would have one believe. Flood stories do abound but they cannot be connected so casually as they are in this case. To pick a random character and fable, Robin Hood, as far as I know it's thought that there may well have been a real person or a composite of characters behind the fable that got only better as it was told in taverns and inns. I don't think anyone would be surprised to find that Noah's tale has a real but local event like the one discussed in the Black Sea document Rolf just linked to. One can easily imagine what it would be like for a more primitive people, most of whom likely never ventured more than several or tens of miles from their place of birth. For them it would have seemed as if the whole world had flooded and from their frame of reference indeed it had. Seriously Robert, at least make an honest attempt to read the Wiki link on the Gilgamesh flood that Rolf has provided. Rolf, I haven't had the time to read through the Cahill document but I find it very interesting and definitely will. Thank you for that and for posting the more appropriate link to the Gilgamesh flood mythology available on Wikipedia as well. While I'm at it, thank you Tenncrain for the link on Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. I'd seen it commented on in the past when the K-T has been mentioned but never pursued the info on it. I'll be reading that and perhaps more when I get the free time.

Robert Byers said: I know all this stuff. Our idea is far better in explaining these things. Its these sumerian tales that are the corrupted human memories. The bible is the right one.

stevaroni said:

Henry J said:

Did Death of any Kind Exist Before the Fall?

Is there a distinct layer of dead bodies at about the right place in the geological column, and a complete absence of dead bodies in any layer older than that? ;)

Well, it would be pretty simple to figure out what the geological column should look like on a Noachian world. First, it would be empty of all life forms for most of its depth. God created it de novo, so there's no reason it parts of it would be made of thousands of feet of diatom skeletons. Second, there should be a layer of about 2000 years of "normal" life (assuming things died). This should include dinosaurs intermingled with mammals. Third, every mountain basin that existed 4000 years ago should have a hundred-foot deep pile of mixed bones and vegetation. In the Noachain world every living thing on earth died in a couple of weeks. As the waters receded all that organic detritus should get swept into catch basins, because that' show floods work. Donkeys, dinosaurs and Douglas firs should all be found in great heaping piles in the ancestral deep valleys of the world, and any carbon dating you do on them should agree within a few weeks. So... Beyers, is this what we see?

I'm sure Noah made good use of the fire breathing dragons as described at AIG and
used on their billboards.
One account: http://fatlip.leoweekly.com/2012/06/14/only-in-kentucky-unbridled-dragons/

Robert Byers said: The insight or equation here is that the fantastic universality of the story of a destroying flood leaving few alive is strongly suggesting its a true memory of collective mankind. Just as it would be predicted if the biblical story was true. The nearness in the story is remarkable. its striking about such a common idea. Excusing this away as mere local interaction with local floods is just guessing. Those people were more aware of local flooding and not impressed or shattered by them. Par for the course. This great story of a great flood was about great results. Not high spring floods. Nope. mankind agrees on this great ancient event of a great destroying flood. However separate the people groups were, Chinese or Greeks, they all agree exactly as it would be if it was a important common memory. If they didn't have these common stories it would be a good point about why not such a great event not be remembered by people with not much else to remember. Intelligent analysis would conclude these hundreds of flood stories indicate a original event. The bible documents better and claims to be from Gods witness.

DS said:

Robert Byers said: The insight or equation here is that the fantastic universality of the story of a destroying flood leaving few alive is strongly suggesting its a true memory of collective mankind. Just as it would be predicted if the biblical story was true. The nearness in the story is remarkable. its striking about such a common idea. Excusing this away as mere local interaction with local floods is just guessing. Those people were more aware of local flooding and not impressed or shattered by them. Par for the course. This great story of a great flood was about great results. Not high spring floods. Nope. mankind agrees on this great ancient event of a great destroying flood. However separate the people groups were, Chinese or Greeks, they all agree exactly as it would be if it was a important common memory. If they didn't have these common stories it would be a good point about why not such a great event not be remembered by people with not much else to remember. Intelligent analysis would conclude these hundreds of flood stories indicate a original event. The bible documents better and claims to be from Gods witness.

Bullshit. This is nothing more than question begging at its worst. First, people at that time didn't even know that the earth was round. let alone ho big it was. How on the world could they possibly know if a flood was global when they didn't even know they were on a globe? Second, the flood didn't have to be global in order for it to be preserved in similar form in many different traditions. The same local flood would produce this, or similar floods in different locations would produce the same pattern. Third, you are forgetting that there is lots of evidence of many local floods, including one in the right place and time. There is absolutely no evidence for any global flood, no mechanism by which it could be produced and no way for the ecosystem to recover from such an event. So no, you lose again. All of your fake bluster is worthless.

Robert Byers said: Fossilization of any extent at all is entirely from unique events in nature. I don't think a single buffalo was or is in a state of fossilization that died since 1492AD.! All fossils below the k-t line are from the biblical flood. Some YEC thinkers would add all below the ice age line. Any segregation of types is simply from segregated flows bring quickly different sediment loads from tens/hundreds of miles away. Its just what it looks like. Sediment piled up in different deposition events. Quickly. before the fklood there was a different order of fauna/flora. It all works fine.

About that Black Sea Link...It's absolutely insane.

I suppose the black sea basin could have flooded when a natural dam across the Bosporus eroded, but won't offer an opinion on that, preferring to leave it to geologists. But just looking at the first paragraph there...

The Genesis Enoch and Greek flood stories are not independent witnesses of anything--they all derive from the Babylonian flood myth through simple literary dependence.

What it says there about Proto-IndoEuropean is crazy. It's true that PIE is related to the Semitic and Uralic families, but there was never a society in which which the priestly/royal caste was Semitic, the warrior caste Urlalic and the farmers Semites--I can't say briefly how preposterous that idea is. As they say, its not even wrong. Nor is the Atlantis myth Indo-European in origin. Its purely a work of fiction (if you look at the context of the Critias, it takes place on the same day that each year Athenian school children participated in a contest to tell the most outrageous lie--that's a clue to its genre). I could go on, but you get the idea

That site is like a page form Answers in genesis. Speaking more reasonably, no ANE scholar has ever entertained the black sea origin of Babylonian flood mythology seriously for the simple reason that the only evidence connecting the two is: there was a flood several hundred miles form Babylonia, and 2500 years later there was in Babylonia a story about a different flood. Its sort of laughable really. You'll notice the person defending it appears to be a medical doctor, a class that is notorious in ancient studies for producing defenders of crack-pot theories.

DS said: Although I think it might be better to respond on the bathroom wall most of the time, even if the administrators cannot be bothered to banish him there.

Rikki_Tikki_Taalik said: One has to admire his persistence in the face of ineptitude.

I'm far from a computer and this phone is ill-adapted to moderating. Please just ignore Byers.

Richard B. Hoppe said: I'm far from a computer and this phone is ill-adapted to moderating. Please just ignore Byers.

prongs said:

Dave Luckett said: It isn't just the Ark that is bought for the $73 million. It's the whole shebang. And they're hiring Amish carpenters, who are among the few now able to erect large timber structures without steel fastenings, using notching, joining and pegging. My grandfather would have had a field day. He was trained as a joiner when joinery meant "you don't use nails or screws", and he always used to express deep contempt for what is now called "carpentry". No doubt the Amish will do a good job. Provided, of course, that the structure is bedded in concrete, thoroughly braced externally, and never has to contend with the shifting stresses of working in a seaway, or with warping and differential shrinkage and expansion rates that are inseparable from being partly immersed. Floating boxes, now. I wonder if Byers has ever wondered why ships are not "floating boxes"? Nah. That would require intellectual curiosity.

Well, here's the full-sized ark a Dutchman built: http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-202_162-10014825.html It floats on a steel barge (not capable of floating by itself), has interior steel reinforcement (not capable of supporting itself), steel fasteners (otherwise it would come apart), high-volume force-air heating for the winter and air-conditioning for the summer (otherwise all the visitors would suffocate from lack of oxygen), is wired for electricity (lights and fans and pumps, etc.), and has a sprinkler system in case of fire. And it uses NO PITCH. Now that's a cop-out. Where's the pitch? WHERE'S ALL THE PITCH? And he has the nerve to call this Noah's Ark.

Marilyn said: How did they get the Ark ready in time? Answer:- Because everybody PITCHED IN

Right, and then the neighbors threw the Noahs out with the dinosaurs and sailed away. The post-flood Noahs were impostors. A different family, with different names!

IIRC, the duration of construction (70 years, isn't it?) is long enough that the timbers laid down first would have have to been replaced before the "boat" was finished, based on real-world data from actual wooden ships. Looks like the "magic" of "gopher wood" is that it doesn't decay and no insects attack it.

I would love to see a marine architect's analysis of how a wooden boat of this size would have to be constructed to survive the obvious wind and wave action that would occur on a planet that had no exposed landmass.

I think of the condition of the passengers: how many animals would get seasick, for example?

Rikki_Tikki_Taalik said:

DS said: Although I think it might be better to respond on the bathroom wall most of the time, even if the administrators cannot be bothered to banish him there.

Point taken. I usually stay out of the wind-ups that the trolls bring here anyway. There are others far more qualified to respond to particular assertions as it is. I do giggle about it once in a while though as it sometimes reminds me of the pie fight trope you see in older movies. Oh well, it looks like Robert once again skirted the point. One might start to ask oneself why none of these flood stories have any connection but "a flood". It seems that after such a disastrous event the descendants of Noah decided to abandon and chuck out Yahweh as the instigator. Some of them for multiple gods. All the stories drastically different in detail. Another one of Yahweh's earthly reboots that failed in a spectacular fashion. One has to admire his persistence in the face of ineptitude.

Robert Byers said:

Rikki_Tikki_Taalik said:

DS said: Although I think it might be better to respond on the bathroom wall most of the time, even if the administrators cannot be bothered to banish him there.

Point taken. I usually stay out of the wind-ups that the trolls bring here anyway. There are others far more qualified to respond to particular assertions as it is. I do giggle about it once in a while though as it sometimes reminds me of the pie fight trope you see in older movies. Oh well, it looks like Robert once again skirted the point. One might start to ask oneself why none of these flood stories have any connection but "a flood". It seems that after such a disastrous event the descendants of Noah decided to abandon and chuck out Yahweh as the instigator. Some of them for multiple gods. All the stories drastically different in detail. Another one of Yahweh's earthly reboots that failed in a spectacular fashion. One has to admire his persistence in the face of ineptitude.

Quite wrong. Most flood stories talk of it being a punishment of the people or a general anger. Some talk of preserving animals or bits of other points. IN fact old bible scholars used a cross reference of the stories to say the bible one only could be the original accurate memory. No way around it. Its a excellent case for a true event based on ancient written or oral histories of people groups who seriously did care about their history. Grasping at spring floods is just grasping against the obvious. Then remember the great Christian faith and its sources says it true.

Robert Byers said: Quite wrong. Most flood stories talk of it being a punishment of the people or a general anger. Some talk of preserving animals or bits of other points. IN fact old bible scholars used a cross reference of the stories to say the bible one only could be the original accurate memory. No way around it. Its a excellent case for a true event based on ancient written or oral histories of people groups who seriously did care about their history. Grasping at spring floods is just grasping against the obvious. Then remember the great Christian faith and its sources says it true.

If one has time to kill, several replies to more recent verbal diarrhea from Byers are on this page of the BW.

lkeithlu said: I would love to see a marine architect's analysis of how a wooden boat of this size would have to be constructed to survive the obvious wind and wave action that would occur on a planet that had no exposed landmass.

Dave Luckett said: The Ark was supposed to be 440 or so feet long. That means that its keel could not be supplied by any tree on earth. Hence, it would have to be joined. But no timber join can conceivably stand the flexing and twisting stresses of working in a seaway.

Maybe they had the elephants there early, to help with the heavy stuff?

Henry J said: Maybe they had the elephants there early, to help with the heavy stuff?

stevaroni said:

Dave Luckett said: The Ark was supposed to be 440 or so feet long. That means that its keel could not be supplied by any tree on earth. Hence, it would have to be joined. But no timber join can conceivably stand the flexing and twisting stresses of working in a seaway.

Actually (and I use that term loosely), almost any keel the Noah's would have used would have to be joined. As I was reminded quite recently while working with a friend install decorative timbers in his house, wood is heavy. Lebanese cedar weighs about 30-35 lbs per cubic foot. That means that a large beam, say 10 x 10" would weigh about 22 lbs/ft. This sets a low upper limit to how long a beam could be since it had to be cut, dressed, transported, and erected by 4 men, Since there were 4 men, one of which was pushing 90. Now, reasonable people might ague whether that limit is 12 or 15 or maybe 20 feet, but it's probably not 100. I have no doubt that creationists will construct elaborate explanations about how the Noah's could have used cranes and such (The AIG Ark will reportedly feature a conveyor belt to remove manure), but this in turn only raises the issue that Noah & Sons would have to both invent yet another technology (there would have been no large cranes in a world with no large buildings) but would have then had to build the cranes which themselves are large machines requiring the cutting, dressing and transportation of enormous timbers, the cultivation of enough hemp to weave ropes, the actual weaving of said rope, etc. How long does it take for a bronze-age shepherd to carve a 1-foot pulley sheave out of a block of cedar with the tools of the era? Oh - that's right - they would first have to make the tools of the era. How long does it take for a bronze-age shepherd (apparently the rare shepherd cross-skilled in boat-building) to learn the craft of bronze-age tool making?

Dave Luckett said:

lkeithlu said: I would love to see a marine architect's analysis of how a wooden boat of this size would have to be constructed to survive the obvious wind and wave action that would occur on a planet that had no exposed landmass.

There is no such analysis. No vessel made in the manner and of the materials described in Genesis could conceivably float for more than a day or so. No seaworthy fully wooden vessel the size of the Ark was ever made. The only ships ever constructed that approached that size were fastened, strapped, and reinforced with steel fittings. There certainly was an economic need for larger ships from the mid-seventeenth century on, at least, and in ships like the Vasa we see shipbuilders crowding the limits of the possible - but simply strength of materials and keel length requirements defeated them, once that size was reached. In the later nineteenth century, some planked hulls were built that approached 300 foot in length. Any of them beyond 100 foot were either heavily braced, ribbed and reinforced with iron or steel, or else were unseaworthy, or both - and this was with steam pumps constantly working. The Ark was supposed to be 440 or so feet long. That means that its keel could not be supplied by any tree on earth. Hence, it would have to be joined. But no timber join can conceivably stand the flexing and twisting stresses of working in a seaway. Even just an ordinary ocean swell would soon tear it apart. And that's in an ordinary swell, not in the catastrophic flows of water envisaged in a world-wide flood and a deluge/upswelling that gouges out whole new ocean basins. To get past this, Byers and his crowd can only evoke another class of miracles. God set the impossible aside and preserved the Ark. Just as God miraculously prevented its passengers and cargo from being steam-cooked by the energy released by this deluge, upswelling, and gouging of rock. This required God to set aside wholesale the laws of physics that he had ordained. Well, why not? Miracles, even uncovenanted miracles, are like peanuts. You can't stop with just one.

Scott F said: I hate to be pedantic (well, actually, I don't hate it at all :-), but are you sure about the single-piece-of-wood keel thing? This site and this suggest (or at least strongly imply) that keels of wooden vessels could have been built up from more than a single piece of timber. Did you have some other references? I don't doubt that the resulting vessel would have serious problems on the open ocean for a year, but I wouldn't argue that the keel could not be built.

stevaroni said: That means that a large beam, say 10 x 10" would weigh about 22 lbs/ft. This sets a low upper limit to how long a beam could be since it had to be cut, dressed, transported, and erected by 4 men, Since there were 4 men, one of which was pushing 90.

Were there tube worms on the ark? What did Noah put them in?

If the Mid Atlantic Ridge was caused by the Flood, where did the tube worms live before the Flood?

If all that water came up from the lithosphere, didn’t it have to go right by the tube worms?

What about all those bacteria living around the vents and inside tube worms? Did they take a ride on the ark? What did they breathe? Where did they live before the Flood?

TomS said: I don't believe that Genesis rules out the possibility that Noah hired people to help with the construction.

stevaroni said:

TomS said: I don't believe that Genesis rules out the possibility that Noah hired people to help with the construction.

Yes, and that's one of the most evil parts of the myth. I don't know how many paintings and dioramas I've seen over the years that show a small army at work constructing the Ark. They're cutting beams, hammering boards, running cranes and lofting scaffolding all over the place. Yet the Good Book is firm - the Ark sailed with a crew of 8, all of clan Noah. That means that Noah shut up the Ark and sailed away leaving his build crew - men, women and children that his family had worked beside for decades - to all drown. And it's even worse than that. If Noah commanded the resources to employ a small army he was a man of great wealth. And Noah wasn't just some rich guy hiring day labor. In the world of 4000BC there was no such thing as a distinction between wealth and political power because wealth was largely political capitol in the day. If Noah was rich enough to have hundreds working for him he was some sort of political figure. At the very least the equivalent of a minor ruler of an area that could produce tens of thousands of board feet of lumber and the staff necessary to harvest it, and the agricultural wherewithal to feed all those people - again, no mean feat in an era of small-scale subsistence farming. Noah was, effectively a regional prince, and he used his people to build him a giant boat. And then he sailed away in it and left them all to drown. He carefully took half a million different kinds of beetles, but he left all the babies. Because that was the right thing to do because, apparently, the babies were too evil to be worth saving.

The heaviest and strongest timber in the ship was the keel. It formed he basis of the vessel and was it's backbone. The keel was put together with massive timbers in order to provide the greatest possible strength.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said: You see, there are good and bad genocides. Good genocide can be turned into amusement. Glen Davidson

Dave Luckett said: Scott F Your references say:

The heaviest and strongest timber in the ship was the keel. It formed he basis of the vessel and was it's backbone. The keel was put together with massive timbers in order to provide the greatest possible strength.

(all sic) I think the expression "the keel was put together with massive timbers" should be construed to mean "the keel was joined to massive timbers (forming the sternpost and stempost)". These are essentially angled uprights, not part of the keel.

Well, well. I stand corrected. I see that I made another error, and attributed Noah's flood to about 4000 BCE, when it was, on balance, about 2400 BCE. That's still bronze age, of course.

But apart from the keel, the other difficulties remain. And I'd really like to see the shipwright who could build a vessel like the Victory, let alone the Ark, in the bronze age, without any prior developed technology or tradition of such ships. I doubt that a cylinder of copper ten feet long and two inches in diameter could even be cast, back then.

Dave Luckett said: I doubt that a cylinder of copper ten feet long and two inches in diameter could even be cast, back then.

TomS said:

Glen Davidson said: You see, there are good and bad genocides. Good genocide can be turned into amusement. Glen Davidson

First a comment on a harsh statement: I presume that you are referring to an ark amusement park. And then, I believe I have heard it said that it is permitted to participate in what seems to be, in human terms, an evil if one is following a command of God. I wonder whether that extends to permitting a falsehood about the mechanisms of the Solar System or the history of variations in life on Earth?

Dave Luckett said: But apart from the keel, the other difficulties remain. And I'd really like to see the shipwright who could build a vessel like the Victory, let alone the Ark, in the bronze age, without any prior developed technology or tradition of such ships. I doubt that a cylinder of copper ten feet long and two inches in diameter could even be cast, back then.

Dave Lovell said:Massive copper bolts up to a couple of inches in diameter hold the whole complex sandwich together. At he ends of the ship where the frames are curved, these bolts can be be over 10 feet long

SWT said: I suspect that the fabrication of such a cylinder would have been within the capability of a good Bronze-Age metal worker.

stevaroni said:

SWT said: I suspect that the fabrication of such a cylinder would have been within the capability of a good Bronze-Age metal worker.

So.. the 4 men of clan Noah are skilled as... Shipwrights Tool-makers Lumberjacks/sawyers And now bonzewrights And, apparently, since they created solutions like cranes, conveyor belts and (according to Beyres, I think) wave-powered forced air ventilation without ever having seen them, had the imagination and foresight of Leonardo DaVinci. Actually, they pretty much invented marine engineering, since no knowledge base like that would have existed at the time. Isambard Brunell would have been proud. Oh, and they lived long enough to construct a vessel the size of a Liberty Ship by hand. Yeah, sure, now that we put it that way, it seems perfectly reasonable.

SWT said: Don't get me wrong, I am arguing neither for a literal interpretation of the Flood narrative nor for the feasibility of building such a vessel ca. 2000 BCE.

stevaroni said:

SWT said: Don't get me wrong, I am arguing neither for a literal interpretation of the Flood narrative nor for the feasibility of building such a vessel ca. 2000 BCE.

Sorry if it sounded like I was trying to yank your chain SW. It's tough doing smart-ass over the internet. The problem is that HTML really needs codes for snark on/off.

stevaroni said: It's tough doing smart-ass over the internet. The problem is that HTML really needs codes for snark on/off.

And that's just about the only HTML code I know.

https://me.yahoo.com/a/JxVN0eQFqtmgoY7wC1cZM44ET_iAanxHQmLgYgX_Zhn8#57cad said: You see, there are good and bad genocides. Good genocide can be turned into amusement an amusement park. Glen Davidson

And TomS beat me to the punch. grumble grumble