Talk:Global flood

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[edit] THIS IS ALL FLAWED IN THAT IF GOD CAN CAUSE THE FLOOD IN THE FIRST PLACE, THEN CAN HE NOT DO ANYTHING

As the title suggests, it makes no sense that God can cause the global flood yet not protect, feed, etc. the animals. In fact, all of those arguments are invalid if you assume that God is omnipotent, which is suggested by the general global flood idea. 68.185.157.191 (talk) 00:53, 3 October 2014 (UTC) Well the argument that you provide here is pretty much goddidit and is therefore irrelevant.N7.Geth (talk) 19:24, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

The topic is of interest, not because any competent person believes that something like what is described in the Bible happened, but for the twists and turns of imaginations running loose while claiming to cleave to a literal reading of an inerrant text which is sufficient in itself. It is interesting how many self-contradictions the human mind is capable of accepting, given enough motivation. It's sort of like one of those picture puzzles where one is supposed to pick out all of the mistakes (like the character wearing one ice-skate and one roller-skate). TomS TDotO (talk) 19:50, 10 November 2014 (UTC)

[edit] cover story

user:Thunderkatz added the nomination template. "(hope i did the noincludes right)" - they don't matter until it is approved. They should be around teh "cover" template as well, of course.

I haven't read through this recently, but as I recall it's a pretty good piece, so I'll vote YES humanUser talk:Human 19:13, 28 January 2008 (EST)

Thanks for the correction. And I vote Yes, yes, ohhh yes! ThunderkatzHo! 19:18, 28 January 2008 (EST)
Adding. humanUser talk:Human 03:27, 6 February 2008 (EST)
I think we should "un-Cover" this for now, it either wasn't very good back then, or someone mucked it up a lot recently. Needs some cleanup all over the place. Thoughts? ħumanUser talk:Human 18:15, 13 October 2008 (EDT)
There is a possibility it was never particularly good. We have so few articles of a substantial length that they stand out from most of the articles that get written; we may have assumed that because it was a decent length that it had to be good. Just a thought... Star of David.png Radioactive Misanthrope 02:14, 14 October 2008 (EDT)
Well, I don't know if its length was the compelling factor in thinking it was good, but why don't we "de-cover" it until it is worthy again (or for the first time)? I'll go look at the diffs to see if it was once glorious or not. ħumanUser talk:Human 16:59, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Revisited

Three years on from this nomination, we have the brainstars. I think it's good to go. Besides, we haven't put a new cover up for ages. ADK...I'll waste your snake! 04:11, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Totally worth it just for the Bible Adventures pic. Nebuchadnezzar (talk) 04:13, 4 October 2011 (UTC)
Sure. Tytalk 11:35, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

[edit] Rerevisited

Seriously, just what is keeping this from gold? It is one of the damn best articles RW has, along with Non-materialist neuroscience and Citizendium. Any objections, a list of what is needed, something? Else, I proceed. --Ray's Super Fun Hellhole! g͘͡r̸̀a̸̶̡n̶̶͜ţ̡ ̀҉̴̨͡m̀͘͜͢e͡ ̸͟҉̷̢ỳ̸̡̀͞ơ̡̢̡ų̧r̴̀͡͝ ̡҉҉̧̛s̵̕͏̡ǫ̀́͢ų́l̵̕҉ 00:20, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

I'll have a check through then remind myself exactly how cover articles work these days. Scarlet A.pngpathetic 13:10, 4 October 2013 (UTC)

[edit] Section on difficulties of keeping animals alive edited out?

There's a nice block of text that has been "arrowed" out--any idea why? PFoster 09:41, 6 October 2008 (EDT)

[edit] Footnotes

Do we purposely have two sections called Footnotes, one halfway down the page and one at the bottom? Also, the last sentence of the section "The Rain Itself" doesn't make a whole lot of sense. ThunderkatzHo! 09:58, 13 October 2008 (EDT)

No, so I fixed it. That sentence means, I think, that the atmosphere can only hold "one inch" of rain in a vertical column, so for more to fall, it has to "blow in" from elsewhere. Looks pretty dubious though. ħumanUser talk:Human 16:35, 13 October 2008 (EDT)
Speaking of which, for a cover story this thing seems to be all hacked up. Has someone recently added a lot of lesser material to it? For instance, that same section, it referred to the earth have a "volume" in "square miles", and equates 3% with 3/1000. What's up? ħumanUser talk:Human 16:40, 13 October 2008 (EDT)
That whole section seems to have been added. When I came across it, it talked about the total volume of water, but the numbers didn't reflect anything that made sense. I tried to add correct numbers, but could't make heads or tales of what was actually the point. I'm still looking for help on the math aspects which don't really do anything for me.--Sun mowse.pngEn attendant Godot"«Let the credulous and the vulgar continue to believe that all mental woes can be cured by a daily application of old Greek myths to their private parts. V.Nabokov» 19:02, 13 October 2008 (EDT)
OK, so what sections have been added, and are they specifically why the article has started sucking, and how did we miss them if this is the case? ħumanUser talk:Human 01:39, 14 October 2008 (EDT)
I checked the revision history. The bizarre rain mathematics came courtesy of Teresita. Where there any other problem sections you had in mind, or was that the main one? Star of David.png Radioactive Misanthrope 02:00, 14 October 2008 (EDT)
I removed Teresita's addition. The mechanics were so indecipherable, and, more importantly, unscientific (no sources were cited), that the section as it stood had no hope of redemption. Star of David.png Radioactive Misanthrope 02:17, 14 October 2008 (EDT)
It would facilitate identification of the sucky parts if someone could point to a version of the article that reflects when it was still "good". Star of David.png Radioactive Misanthrope 02:06, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

I think that what the bit about rain etc. meant was that, at 100% saturation, the air above any one point would only hold 1" of liquid rain (as vapour) at any one time. Therefore, for the rain to continue for n days, falling at say 1" per hour, the actual air above the area would have to be completely replaced each hour. If this was happening over any substantial area then the windspeed to bring in the new water laden air would have been rather high and would have been constant for the whole period. There's a lot of maths involved in working out how much rain can be held in a static column of air - not to mention a moving one - but I'll wager that someone's worked it out somewhere. (Of course it could just have been the celestial dome cracking & allowing the waters to flow down from heaven.) I've been Googling for facts to back any of this up, but no real figures so far, e.g.:

    *  The mixing ratio (w) is the mass of water vapor per mass of dry air

    * Water vapor is at most 4%, so the mass of water vapor is small compared to dry air

    * Therefore, the units of mixing ratio are grams of water vapor per kilogram of dry air

    * Because the Earth’s surface is the source of water vapor, the mixing ratio typically decreases with height

(from here)

SusanG  ContribsTalk 05:33, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

Is there a way to phrase it in layperson's terms? It won't help the promotion of science if no one can understand it. Star of David.png Radioactive Misanthrope 15:27, 14 October 2008 (EDT)
As I said above, I can't find anything that'll give actual figures fo the amount of water in the atmosphere at saturation (i.e. when it starts to rain) but just a rough statement like:
"The atmosphere above any point can only hold so much water at any one time, When this water is removed, by falling as rain, there has to be a replacement of the air by moist air from elsewhere. This, atmospheric movement, is known as wind. To maintain rain over a period of time there would be wind for the whole time. The greater the amount of rain per hour, the greater the wind created by replacement air entering. There is also the problem of saturating the incoming air. Wherever it came from the air had to have passed over water under conditions of high evaporation (usually sunshine!)."
Just off the top of my head. SusanG  ContribsTalk 15:38, 14 October 2008 (EDT)
Right off the top of my head as well, the water vapour needs a seed of some sort to condense on (like champagne bubbles), usually dust particles of some sort but also ionised particles (that's the basis of a cloud chamber for observing sub-atomic charged particles). There also has to be saturation or supersaturation of the water vapour to encourage the water to condense, and the temperature of the air controls how much vapour may be held in the air. That's why you get rain on a "front", where saturated warm air meets cooler air and the air then becomes supersaturated and condenses. Redchuck.gif ГенгисRationalWiki GOLD member 17:06, 14 October 2008 (EDT)

Update: The Footnotes isn't shown for some odd reason. Can someone check it out? ThiehCP≠Child Porn? 12:45, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

It was the dpl in the see also section. Since the page now has a global flood navbar to the right, I don't think it's necessary, just add the most relevant see alsos to the see also section manually. --  Nx/talk  12:49, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] links to the bible

Shall we change the links to the bible to our own (Annotated Bible) or simply leave it to BibleGateway? Just a thought that might encourage people to actually put notes on the Annotated Bible. ThiehMonitoring virgin birth experiment 23:53, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps? One thing I kind of like about BG is that one can switch between versions so easily. ħumanUser talk:Human 00:38, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Rainbow and Sunlight

Question: Would rainbow become a rare scene (rare enough they have never seen it before) if it is heavily cloudy almost everywhere (still some sunlight but not enough for a large scale rainbow)?


Also, the ref link regarding sunlight seems not very good: "Remember, there is no one cause of anything. There are only contributing factors.", as quoted from the article. Say that again for AIDS (HIV isn't the only cause? Ouch). A short explanation may fit better. ThiehLooking for potion recipes 22:57, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

I think "There was no sunlight" pretty much covers your first comment. I agree, [1] is a crappy ref and should be deleted from our fine wiki. ħumanUser talk:Human 01:25, 28 May 2009 (UTC)


No, homosex is the cause of AIDS, not HIV. The Emperor Kneel before Zod! 00:39, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Results of total darkness

Even if there was total darkness - rather than just no direct sunlight, which is all that is needed to prevent rainbows - there are microbes which get their energy from geothermal heath. Not all such microbes live in the water, are thus are not subject to violent currents, and violent surface surface IMHO, this whole section detracts from the article. TomS TDotO (talk) 00:53, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

[edit] Percentages

To go from a population of eight to a population of 27 million in 350 years would require a population growth rate of 136.07%. That is 133% more than the fastest growing portions of the world today.

I checked the link provided. The fastest-growing portions of the world today have a population growth rate of 3%. Now, 136% is not 133% more than 3%. It is 129% more. This is because "129% more" means "multiplied by 2.29", and 2.36 is indeed 1.03 multiplied by 2.29. — Unsigned, by: 91.107.181.241 / talk / contribs

How about we just change it to "roughly forty times more..."? ħumanUser talk:Human 00:25, 18 August 2009 (UTC)
Just saw this after the discussion below showed up in recent changes, but the math in this section is wrong. To go from a population of 8 to 27 million in 350 years takes an annual growth rate of (27,000,000/8)^(1/350), or 4.39%. According to the CIA World Fact Book link, the fastest population growth in 2013 is Libya with 4.85%, which is actually higher. Libya's growth includes immigration, but the 4.39% rate is actually within human biological possibility (there are countries with higher birthrates than that), with a doubling time of just under 16 years. Similarly, going from 6 to 30,000 in 100 years takes an 8.89% growth rate, not 500%, and that rate is still possible if most women have as many children as they can, as fast as they can, and avoid death in childbirth (some creationists claim that Noah and the tower builders had advanced technology, so that's not an unreasonable stretch in their scenario). A criticism of these rates should therefore reflect their social implausibility rather than their biological impossibility, and have greater emphasis on things that are more clearly deal-breaking, like genetics. I'll take a crack at updating the section in a few days if there's no objection. 192․168․1․42 (talk) 01:35, 16 December 2013 (UTC)
No objections. I imagine whoever knocked up that section didn't take into account the exponential nature of it. Have made some amendments. Scarlet A.pngbomination 12:59, 16 December 2013 (UTC)

[edit] Duplication

The section "Post-flood animal survival" has duplicate information in the two paragraphs. Not wanting to step on anyone's toes could someone else (who modified the section perhaps) do a quick tidy-up? CrundyTalk nerdy to me 10:57, 18 September 2009 (UTC)

[edit] j

One text I read said that what happened was people meeting up from different places referred to 'the flooding in my grandparent's time' 'We had the same thing, must be the same flood' -syncretically making a giant flood from little local difficulties. — Unsigned, by: 82.44.143.26 / talk / contribs 17:07, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Please sign your comments using four tildes (~~~~) or by clicking on the sign button: SigButt.png on the toolbar above the edit panel. (You can indent successive talk page comments using one more colon (:) for each line.) Thank you. -- Nx / talk 17:16, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

[edit] Are these statements that creationists make?

  • The Earth was "flatter" prior to the flood than it is now (i.e. the Grand Canyon was cut and Everest rose during the flood).
  • It rained all over the Earth and water came up out of the Earth in many places over a forty day period.

--Edgerunner76Save me Jebus! 15:58, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

I've heard creationists make the first one--Thedoctor80 (talk) 22:11, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

[edit] Silver

This is way better than bronze and the sort of thing that goes on the cover - David Gerard (talk) 11:05, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

[edit] BoN's explanations

I think they're hilarious. Is there any way we can keep them? Jack Hughes (talk) 10:07, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Will this do? Rennie McGreet (talk) 11:36, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
No, it won't do because, without any context, they're not good enough for an article of this importance. If we wrapped each one with "One response is" or "A fundie's response was" of something, but, as they stand, they're not quite good enough. That's why I ended up reverting. Jack Hughes (talk) 11:42, 29 January 2012 (UTC)
There is RationalWiki:Best of the crazy, you can add the diff link there.--ZooGuard (talk) 12:03, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Humans, the Flood and Climate Change etc

Humans' sins led to the Flood - and therefore were responsible for climate change, the death of species, etc.

I read somewhere that 'the global flood' was probably in part the conflation of a number of stories of actual local floods 'just beyond living memory' - it was assumed that they all referred to the same flood.

'Giants' might well have been relative: given nutritional limitations at the time, many people might well have been shorter than we are now, so someone who did reach 'maximum height' might well have seemed taller than to us. (A variant on the argument used about Nestor - he lived to 90+, when the average lifespan was 30-40, so had lived more than two lifespans.) 82.198.250.5 (talk) 19:16, 7 March 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Rainbow redux

Would it be possible for the rainbow thing to work (no rainbow pre-flood) if rain only occurs during the night and finishes way before dawn? Just trying to get cases covered. ThiehZOYG I edit like Ken! 20:41, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

Depends on how you want to "define" a rainbow. A rainbow is an optical phenomenon caused by light diffraction, which means its perfectly possible for it to occur at any time (I think it works with the moon, I'll have a look). Scarlet A.pngtheist 20:43, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
wp:Moonbow Scarlet A.pngmoral 20:44, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
You've solved it! Oh, so it has to be on a moonless night, with no fires. that's doable. one rain a month, every month only at night! one would think the bible would mention such a thing of course.Pink mowse.pngGodotoi, putain, genial, merci 20:45, 9 March 2012 (UTC)
To cut a long story short, the only way for a rainbow not to exist is for everyone to be completely unable to see. Scarlet A.pngmoral 20:59, 9 March 2012 (UTC)

[edit] Biomass Argument (Hugh Ross)

I have also pasted a version of this on Talk:Evidence_against_a_recent_creation. Hugh Ross (OEC) claims on his website that in the earth there is around 80 quadrillion tons of fossilised biomass, locked up in limestone. Ross compares this with the estimates of current biomass - and concludes that the limestone total exceeds this by around 122,000–348,000 times.

Ross uses this biomass argument (sorry I can't find this in print - it's about half the way through the video) to demolish the YEC's simplistic model of flood geology, ie that the biblical flood created the fossil record. If every creature alive today suddently perished in a global catastrophe and became fossilised, it would only constitute around 0.001% of the total of the biomass locked up in limestone. Is there any evidence in the scientific literature to support this argument? If so, this is a killer for YEC 'flood geology'. On the other hand, perhaps they will just claim that they have now found where all the dark matter in the Universe has gone to. --CatWatcher (talk) 11:39, 15 September 2012 (UTC)

[edit] You guys are a bunch of shit heads

The reach that when into this article is beyond awful. Have you guys ever read the Bible? How can you discern the validity of something without even reading it? The Bible says that animals and humans did not eat meat before the flood, so that kinda makes animals eating each other a non factor.— Unsigned, by: 65.100.37.15 / talk / contribs

The reach the whent into you're spellin and grammer is aslo aweful, budy. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 09:56, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Hey shit head - maybe you should read your bible. Death and consequently meat eating started after the fall of Adam. Not the flood. As per, you know, the Bible. You fail. Acei9 09:46, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
and you just proved my point, you guys didn't read the Bible. According to the Bible God didn't give humans permission to eat meat until rite after the flood.
Think about what you are saying. The Fall of Adam was when God introduced death and suffering into the world. It was after The Fall but before the Flood that meat eating began. It is all in the Bible you think I haven't read. Acei9 09:53, 5 February 2013 (UTC) Hang on, hang on - I take it back. You may very well be right. I apologise and retract. Acei9 09:55, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Humans weren't given permission to eat until after the flood, but there is no indication that animals remained vegetarian after the fall. From the limited study that I have done, it is an open question whether other animals became carnivorous after the fall.eg here --DamoHi 09:59, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

I for one have never heard of fishing. What is fishing? Can you explain it to me? Picon small.pngAcer Blue 10:01, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

People disagree on the point. After all it seems likely that animals were killed for clothing/shelter prior to the flood and Calvin, for example, thought that the covenant was effectively giving humans a guilt free pass for what they were already doing (ie, eating meat). Regardless, it's like arguing the finer details of a Grimm brothers story, was Thumbelina 4 or 5 inches? Who exactly were the seven dwarfs? No article will ever address your specific theology, but perhaps if you lay out how you believe lions ate plants prior to the flood etc... then people will engage with you on this talk page and disabuse you of those beliefs. Tielec01 (talk) 10:02, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Yes, you're argument seems entirely focused on details that, in the end, don't make much difference. Now if you want to debate, say, whether or not there is proof of said flood, then I think this whole site will be all-ears. Reckless Noise Symphony (talk) 10:06, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
(ec x 3) And here does it say that animals were vegetarian. Because a lion's teeth were totally "created" to eat carrots. Or did God make a mistake? What amazes me is that you claim to have read the Bible, and still think the Flood story has any credibility. --PsyGremlin講話 10:03, 5 February 2013 (UTC)

If there were no carnivores before the flood, then one of the following must be true:

  • God created the carnivores after the flood. If so, why even bother with the ark, why not just create everything after the flood? And why doesn't the bible note the sudden appearance of a whole bunch of new animals on land and in the sea?
  • The current carnivores were modified by God post-flood, to accommodate the enormous changes in the skeletal, digestive and muscular systems that would be needed to move to their new diet. God would also have to modify the numerous dead animals as well, else the fossil record would show vegetarian lions and sharks. As there were no dinosaurs after the flood anyway, why did he modify their corpses to make several of them look carnivorous as well? And as before, if god intended to do so much wholesale tinkering post-flood, why even bother with the ark? VOXHUMANA 10:14, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Of course, as the flood never actually happened, it's all a bit moot.--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 13:05, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
I didn't see the need to state the obvious. VOXHUMANA 22:21, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Not only did the flood never happen but there is no god to make any flood happen! Scream!! (talk) 14:34, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Of course there was no flood of such gigantic proportions. However the article (and its related articles) are largely written as a 'what if' assuming that there was a flood. Its imaginary status is not crucial to the articles. DamoHi 22:25, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
As Damo said, a common approach with many of these theological positions (creation, young-earth, global flood) is to simply accept them for the sake of argument, and then follow the implications to the logical conclusion. Here we are discussing the assertion "there were no carnivores prior to the flood", and as demonstrated above, it is easy to deduce the absurdities that necessarily arise once you accept that notion. Simply shouting "it never happened" without supporting argument is no more convincing that shouting "it did happen" as our fundamentalist colleagues tend to do. VOXHUMANA 23:07, 5 February 2013 (UTC)
Proof by contradiction, as you might call it. You can't disprove something by presupposing it's false, that ends up being circular. So it's perfectly valid, especially when there's a counter side saying "here is our evidence", you just say "okay, so if this is true, then you must accept that this is true, which renders it absurd." It's hardly a controversial methodology. Scarlet A.pngpostate 01:45, 6 February 2013 (UTC)

[edit] "Explanation" for how the animals spread out to where are now after the flood, post-flood

http://creation.com/images/pdfs/cabook/chapter17.pdf

This could be quoted as an example of the just silly explanations they offer for how and why the animals got to where they are now after the went off the ark.Homsefar (talk) 22:55, 4 March 2013 (UTC)

[edit] Ocean salinity

Could somebody do me a solid and "fact check" my hypothesis here. I see as yet another issue with the global flood the fact that the oceans are salty today. If the flood was a freshwater flood, it should have diluted the oceans to the point of being freshwater, and so today's oceans should be freshwater, not saltwater. I mean, there's always the generic "goddidit" response or the more specific "god shed big soppy tears into the new oceans to make them salty again" response, but I think this is a valid argument against the flood that I haven't seen elsewhere. Tiefling (talk) 14:46, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

From what I've read recent creationist thought is on "the fountains of the deep" being a source of the flood in conjunction with the rain from heaven. So salt water could be supplied from below. I really must knuckle down to reading Snellling's book and posting a critique. But I'd be interested to hear the response if you try to make that argument in creatards forums. Redchuck.gif ГенгисRationalWiki GOLD memberModerator 16:25, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
The problem is that, once you start trying to explain something as preposterous as the flood in "real" terms then you're allowed all sorts of nonsense. The idea that that much water can come and go is so ludicrous that to believe that it
  • picked up salts as it was washed up from the fountains of the deep
  • picked up salts as it washed down the pre flood mountains.
  • rained salt water
are no more ludicrous. Innocent Bystander (talk) 16:49, 29 May 2013 (UTC)
Walt Brown's hydroplate "theory" uses salt water. As long as even one creationist has an explanation for this, even if the rest of the "theory" is wholly inconsistent with everything else the creationist is relying on, you lose. Cuddles. Nutty Roux100x100 anarchy symbol.svg 19:47, 29 May 2013 (UTC)

[edit] Shared Flood mythology

"Many other flood myths have existed throughout history in many cultures, but most of these likely arose independently, as virtually all of them were written by societies that resided near regularly flooding bodies of water."

Is this correct? The flood in Genesis is a mirror image of the Gilgamesh flood myth (likely derived from the 1700BC Atrahasis epic).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panbabylonism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilgamesh_flood_myth

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atra-Hasis

Richardbrucebaxter (talk) 01:13, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

While the Gilgamesh story is likely related to the Genesis one, creationists also point to a vast number of other stories from around the world that mention floods. These are more likely to be independently derived. Peter mqzp 01:32, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

[edit] Torah/Bible

Sorry for being a pedant, but the flood isn't found in the Bible and the Torah, as is claimed on this page - this is technically inaccurate, as the Torah is just the first 5 books of the Bible. You might as well just say Bible (as this is more well known as Torah) as otherwise it suggests that there are two flood stories found in the two separate entities 'Bible' and 'Torah'. Again, sorry for being a pendant, it's in my nature. --Beenz715 (talk) 15:12, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Except for the fact that they are used by totally different religions of course. --PsyGremlinSnakk! 15:30, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
Judaism and Christianity are totally different? There's rather a lot of overlap... SophieWilderModerator 21:50, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps "Jewish Torah" and "Christian Bible" to cover all bets?--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 22:05, 15 December 2013 (UTC)
WP:Noah in Islam. SophieWilderModerator 22:23, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

[edit] When the boat comes in

  1. Thou shall hev a fishy on a little dishy,
  2. Thou shall hev a fishy when the boat comes in.

... and the ship in the series never actually went to sea.

Could there be a list of places which #do not have# flood narratives (which 'disproves the case using the Flood-promoters own logic'). 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:19, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

[edit] The boat don't float

Would the boat and contents have been able to float at all (never mind being seaworthy)? With the animals needing to be moved about would there not have been occasions when the centre of balance was too much to one side and the ship tipped over?

No matter what the practical arguments against 'those convinced of the Bible's complete accuracy (despite the Bible-as-we-know-it being a selection from a much wider range of writings, and the various internal contradictions)' won't be persuaded otherwise - even if God, the Invisible Pink Unicorn and the FSM appeared and said it was a partial record, with various stories being conflated.

The rest of us will accept that there were various actual historical floods in which 'narrator characters, their families and their animals' were in a locality subject to widespread flooding, got onto 'the local ferry and coracles' (taking whatever goods and chattels were readily available) and floated around to a new locality (that happened to be on higher ground). They then encountered others who had done the same, and all claimed that 'our father and mother the creator gods kept us safe.' Subsequently theh heard of similar floods elsewhere and 'a flooding' involving the Black Sea-Mediteranean complex and a garbled retelling of the flooding of Doggerland and transformed the whole into the stories of Gilgamesh and Noah. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:13, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

... and writers of religious texts did not know about copyright, so quite happily borrowed from each others' works (and 'the peasants, being canny' knew enough about each faith to be able to quote relevantly/express sufficient ignorance to 'get the benefits of being converted' - and so the stories got entangled. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:36, 21 March 2014 (UTC)

[edit] What is the size of the ark?

Let's say the calculation would be fun! let's try!

According to evoultionwiki, the average size of a land animal is the size of a sheep. Therefore, in average, they need about 100m² each to have some free space, and maybe a small shelter (Cause the LORD doesn't want them to choke, right?) Let's say there are roughtly 100,000 ground animal species. Yep, it makes about 20,000,000 m². Aka a rectangle being 10 km long and 2 km wide. BUT THAT'S NOT ALL!...

... cause the LORD doesn't want them to starve, neither, does he? Let's say the sheep also has the average in term of feeding. And he eats no less than 3 kg a day... It makes us no less than 600 tons a day. And what about the entire trip? 220 kilotons of food! Storing that would need about 1m² for 100 kg. We need 2,200,000,000 m² of storage.

Now, let's say the animals need light. They occupy all the upper deck, which is no less than 10 km long. How many storages decks does it takes to store food if the boat is 10 km long and 2 km wide? 110. It means that the ark approximately has the height of the Chrysler Building. This is way too high. We need to expand the ark again. It is now 4 km wide and 50 km long. And there are 11 floors. Because... GODIDIT!!!

P.S. I hope my english isn't too bad. Towerator (talk) 10:45, 30 April 2014 (UTC)

Calculations are moot. The size is given in the Bible. The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it. Scarlet A.pngDon't click here 11:52, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Oh, well, then the arch maybe has an internal pressure similar to a neutron star. Because the Bible! Towerator (talk) 14:16, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Also, because baraminology. Scarlet A.pngDon't click here 14:37, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
While I understand that it all happened by magic so logic isn't important your calculations still leave us with an Ark with is way to small.
The problem is that you haven been way too speciesist in your typical animal selection. ::::There are countless numbers of insects, beetles spiders or what have you which need to live in very specialised environments. Then there are the parasites which would need hosts - many of whom would die so you'd need to double up on your larger animals as well. (And ,of course, someone would need to carry the human parasites and diseases.)There are also many bacteria which, I suspect, would not do well under water. Obviously multiple special environments would have been needed for all this - rainforests, tundra, desserts or whatever. In addition, depending on whether the water covering the globe was salty or not, a series of massive aquariums kept at different temperatures would also have been needed.
What you really need is a fleet of Arks of the size you suggest.
And your english is great. : -) --Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 14:48, 30 April 2014 (UTC)
Yeah, but just imagine we're talking about ships being as long as NY! Really... And we need to create sealed environnements for organism which are killed by oxygen! And what about the 2M bugs? And what about fungi? And wat abot the entire plant reign? They would need to carry a whole living redwood to replant it as soon as they reach land! No, seriously, if there was only 1 ark, it should be... let's say... 1 Mm(it's Megameter, right?) long? And one that can survive a 10-kilometer-high gigatsunami (cause megatsunami don't fit, sometimes)! Now, go in front of me and tell me it happened. I'll laugh. Towerator (talk) 15:07, 30 April 2014 (UTC)


[edit] 'The ark' solved

It is actually 'The Earth' floating on a sea of infinity. Noah was merely involved in the local equivalent of the flooding of the (English) Somerset Levels of early 2014, making use of a series of barge-equivalents to transport his animals (which lived off floating greenery and 'somewhat waterlogged plants', while the (precursors of) Van cats fished.. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 18:31, 22 May 2014 (UTC), updated 82.44.143.26 (talk) 14:25, 13 June 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. Everything is clear now.--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 14:52, 13 June 2014 (UTC)
Van cats (mild cuteness alert) here [2]. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:39, 16 June 2014 (UTC)

[edit] Clean animals

Is it seven grand total, or seven of each male and female, for a total of fourteen? Even on this wiki I've seen both. For a cover article we need to get this right NOW. Thanos6 (talk) 04:42, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

  • Again, we need to fix this. The article itself can't decide between seven or fourteen. This is unacceptable for a cover article. Thanos6 (talk) 22:35, 25 September 2014 (UTC)
    • Fine, I fixed it myself. Thanos6 (talk) 07:12, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

[edit] God and the rainbow

So were there rainbows or not before the flood?

And why 'the fire next time'? (Rather than snow, drought, black flowers...)

Given the behavior of people #in the Bible alone# after the flood with God not doing much, what did the pre-flood people get up to, to invoke God's anger (rather than the narrative being a confluence of various narratives recording actual large scale floods/a retelling of Gilgamesh. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 16:23, 1 September 2014 (UTC)

[edit] How can you have a "rationalwiki" without doing any rational research

I can't even see the Islamic view on Noah, who was Prophet Nuh in the Quran... So your telling me that the Author of this article (and the many people following) did some research on the flood and never happened to come across Islam?— Unsigned, by: 81.129.231.222 / talk / contribs

We don't bother breaking down every story that exists, because this article mostly exists to refute people who claim "the flood" is scientific fact. In general, our repositories on Islamic creationists are a bit thinner because the primary pushers of that particular type of nonsense are Christians. Ikanreed (talk) 19:53, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
As our IP editor seems to be interested in the topic I wonder if he could tell us what percentage of Muslims buy into the Islamic version of the flood myth?--Coffee (talk) 21:31, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
Oh yeah, I forgot include the most important part, when dealing with IPs: if you have something useful to contribute, we welcome it. Our articles are never done. Ikanreed (talk) 21:58, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
ROFL ROFL ROFL. There's no way some of the bullies here would let him edit this article. Nutty Roux (talk) 23:23, 3 December 2014 (UTC)
Oh, boo hoo, we don't constantly fall for the balance fallacy, and poor nutty roux is so oppressed as a result. Ikanreed (talk) 14:50, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

[edit] Levels of salinity tolerable by freshwater fish species

The article states that, "Most freshwater fish are unable to survive in water with any salt at all". This is simply untrue. There are low levels of salt in most freshwater bodies of water. Fish-keepers often treat sick fish by adding small amounts of aquarium salt to help the fish keep up their electrolytes. Increasing the salinity of the water is a common and effective treatment for ich among other fish diseases. Some freshwater fish tolerate salt better than others; but the point is that you cannot truthfully say "Most freshwater fish are unable to survive in water with any salt at all," or anyone who knows anything about fish-keeping will think you're an idiot.

It really doesn't help your cause if the people you are criticizing for not knowing a lick about science know more about science than you. 140.182.10.62 (talk) 03:53, 4 December 2014 (UTC)

It's poorly worded with the "most" and the "any... at all" parts, which imply that even the minimal amount of salt can kill them. It would be nice if you didn't call us out on lying and assuming that the guys who support Global Flood know about fish-keeping more than us, but thanks for catching and correcting the error either way. LEFTYGREENMARIO 06:28, 7 December 2014 (UTC)

[edit] Flood Myth Explained

The Australian aborigines have a flood myth. Australia was inhabited 60-70,000 years ago. North and South America have similar flood myths, and the continents were first settled 12-15,000 years ago. Seems to me that a GLOBAL flood is unnecessary to explain similar myth if all of humanity was concentrated in one area, like the Middle East, when a flood event occurred. This was the case when Mount Toba in Indonesia blew up 74,000 years ago. It deposited up to a foot of ash along the African coast, and may have created Tsunami waves that battered both India, Africa and the Red Sea. This event may have almost destroyed the human race, reducing human population to less than 10,000 individuals.

The Flood myths may be similar everywhere not because the flood occurred everywhere, but because the flood (tsunami) occurred so long ago when humankind was concentrated in the small area of Eastern Africa, Mesopotamia and possibly India (where stone tools have been found below the ash layer from the Toba eruption). The oral history of this singular and actual event may have survived in the myths of human cultures as they spread across the world in the ensuing 74,000 years.

I'm throwing this out there for discussion as I've not seen this disaster connected in any way with the pervasiveness of Flood Myth around the world.

K. E. Bevier Camden, SC— Unsigned, by: 108.236.26.169 / talk / contribs

What is one to say other than "that may be true"? Nutty Roux (talk) 03:53, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
No one doubts that floods occur in lots of places at lots of times. Sometimes really big ones with great loss of life and property. We don't need to insist that there is only one flood for any or all of these stories in even one place, yet alone in other places. What is clear is that there is no reason to resort to imagining that to account for even one such story. Floods happen. There is no reason to think that there was one flood taking place simultaneously everywhere over the globe within the lifetime of humans. And the imaginative distortions resorted to by the apologists for the Biblical account should speak for themselves. The only thing that is hard to explain is that anyone takes them seriously. — Unsigned, by: TomS TDotO / talk / contribs 08:49, 6 January 2015 (UTC)
As others have said - floods occur. Sometimes big floods occur. Way back when did a particularly big flood occur which gave rise to many different stories? Perhaps - though without evidence it's just an unsubstantiated hypothesis.
Did a flood occur as described in the Bible? We can be certain that that didn't happen.--Bob"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that." 12:55, 6 January 2015 (UTC)

[edit] Gigamesh and Noah

The Gilgamesh flood myth is slightly more plausible than the Noah myth.

Noah takes his immediate family, and 'all the animals.' Result much intermarriage - within a few generations everybody is their own cousin 15 times over. While on the ark there are visits from time-travelling Prevention of Cruelty to Animals groups (creatures kept in small cages and only a handful of people to look after them all etc etc).

Utnapishtim loaded into the boat he had built his silver and gold, all the living beings that he had, his relatives and craftsmen, and "all the beasts and animals of the field". A far larger number of people, sufficient to maintain genetic diversity, and with skills to construct a new village/town. The animals are in reasonable numbers and can be looked after properly (food being provided by [3]).

The various flood stories are probably based on 'real events' - with conflation and exchange of prehistoric memes among many story tellers and others creating the versions we know today. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 19:35, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

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