Implausibility of the flood tale

[Zzyzx]

.
In a thread discussing the different lengths of time Genesis assigns to the Earth being flooded, mention was made of other implausibilities of the flood tale -- including:

1) A wooden boat much larger that any known to exist and built by a 500 year old man
2) Millions of animals gathered from all over the world and redistributed afterward
3) A billion cubic miles of water sudden appearing -- then disappearing afterward
4) Eight people providing for millions of diverse animals (some carnivores) for a year
5) Repopulating all the continents with humans and other animals in a few thousand years (and producing the great genetic diversity known to exist).

Are those (and other) implausibilities sufficient grounds to conclude that in all likelihood the flood tale is fable, legend, myth, folklore or fiction?

If not, why not? What rational explanation can be made for them?

[McCulloch]

According to the story, Adam gathered food to the ark.

Did you mean Adam or Noah?

And again, there is possibility that they were not yet fully grown. So the amount of food was not necessary as much as if we take the worst case scenario.

Even taking weaned young elephants, rhinos, horses, cattle, bison, wildebeests, goats, sheep, moose, elk, reindeer, camels, llamas, bears, yaks, … . The logistics of care and feeding are impossible.

It is for example possible that there were “dwarf� elephants only and all modern elephants are their offspring.

In this one statement is the irony of young earth creationism. On one hand, they deny that evolution explains the diversity of life on earth. On the other hand, they require evolution to work at an impossibly quick rate to justify their flood story.

[Danmark]

According to the story, Adam gathered food to the ark.

Did you mean Adam or Noah?

And again, there is possibility that they were not yet fully grown. So the amount of food was not necessary as much as if we take the worst case scenario.

Even taking weaned young elephants, rhinos, horses, cattle, bison, wildebeests, goats, sheep, moose, elk, reindeer, camels, llamas, bears, yaks, … . The logistics of care and feeding are impossible.

It is for example possible that there were “dwarf� elephants only and all modern elephants are their offspring.

In this one statement is the irony of young earth creationism. On one hand, they deny that evolution explains the diversity of life on earth. On the other hand, they require evolution to work at an impossibly quick rate to justify their flood story.

Ultimately the young Earth creationist and literal world wide flood believer is dissuaded by neither facts nor evidence. Creationism is the belief in magic. If a god can [poof!] create a universe in a blink of an eye then he can do anything by magic; logic and logistics don't matter one whit.

[1213]

[Replying to post 198 by 1213]

Why should I imagine the storm? Bible doesn’t tell there was a storm.

Now you're just flat out lying.

Heavy rain is not same as storm.

...
Calculations have already been done that indicate that in order for there to have been enough rainwater to cover to the tops of the highest mountains, as indicated in the text, there would need to be 30 feet of rain PER HOUR, for the forty days and forty nights. ....

That is, if we don’t think that the dry land sunk, and water level didn't actually rise globally.

Because Bible says:
In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep were burst open, and the sky's windows were opened. The rain was on the earth forty days and forty nights.
Genesis 7:11-12

I think it was not just rain that caused the flood. Is there any good reason to ignore what the Bible tells and substitute it with own ideas to prove Bible wrong?

[1213]

According to the story, Adam gathered food to the ark.

Did you mean Adam or Noah?.

Sorry, I meant Noah.

In this one statement is the irony of young earth creationism. On one hand, they deny that evolution explains the diversity of life on earth. On the other hand, they require evolution to work at an impossibly quick rate to justify their flood story.

If we believe the Bible story, it is obvious that some kind of “evolution� happens. But I would rather call it devolution, because nothing seems to really develop, everything seems to rather be degenerating.

[Looncall]

[Replying to post 204 by 1213]

Degenerating? Please provide examples. (real examples, please, not religious propaganda)

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 204 by 1213]

Degenerating? Please provide examples. (real examples, please, not religious propaganda)

Well first, he'll have to define what he means by degeneration. Which would more than likely involve saying "people today only live to about 80 to 90 years, not the hundreds in the first books of the OT". Which of course is entirely circular - he's presupposing that the hundreds of years that Noah and the others were said to have lived is true, using the claim as the evidence.
Not only do we NOT have evidence that positively supports ages of hundreds of years, we have direct positive evidence supporting the opposite - we have strong evidence that people long ago only ever lived a small handful of decades at most and that it's only been relatively recently (thanks to knowledge of medicine and nutrition) that the average lifespan has increased.
In real life, we can show strong direct evidence tying improved nutrition and healthcare to longer life spans. We can show exactly how and why they work.
Whereas the 'degeneration' that is mentioned by creationists? It's incredibly vague. "People aren't as strong as back then" I've heard. Well what does that mean? Back then?

I also have to say that degeneration is ALSO indicative of evolution. If our resident creationist points to say vestigial organs in humans, evolution fully explains where and when those organs came from and why they are receding in humans. I notice that creationism doesn't explain why human ancestors would, in the womb, have gill slits (but not actual functional gills). Perhaps, long ago, ancestors to humans had a need for gill-like structures or gills and then stopped using them (perhaps they moved to land?) Creationism doesn't explain where those gill like structures originally came from.

[1213]

[Replying to post 204 by 1213]

Degenerating? Please provide examples. (real examples, please, not religious propaganda)

Examples of degeneration are vestigiality and mutations. If mutations and vestigiality occurs, it proves that degeneration happens and for example human is becoming less complete, or less than it was before. And here are the reason why I think it degeneration is really happening.

“…vestigial structures, though the term for them did not yet exist. He listed a number of them in The Descent of Man, including the muscles of the ear, wisdom teeth, the appendix, the tail bone, body hair, and the semilunar fold in the corner of the eye…�

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vestigiality

“…One study on genetic variations between different species of Drosophila suggests that, if a mutation changes a protein produced by a gene, the result is likely to be harmful, with an estimated 70 percent of amino acid polymorphisms that have damaging effects, and the remainder being either neutral or weakly beneficial…. …According to one study, two children of different parents had 35 and 49 new mutations. Of them, in one case 92% were from the paternal germline, in another case, 64% were from the maternal germline….�

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutation

“….Most Mutations in the Human Genome are Recent and Probably Harmful… …On average, every duplication of the human genome includes 100 new errors… …Joshua Akey of the University of Washington recently explored the average age of our species’s gene variants, finding that most are very young. About three-quarters of single nucleotide variants — a mutation that substitutes just one nucleotide (an A, C, T or G) in the long string of DNA — occurred within the past 5,000 years, surprising considering that our species may be 200,000 years old…�

http://discovermagazine.com/2013/julyau ... ly-harmful

“…It is very likely that within 3000 years (~120 generations) we have all sustained two or more mutations harmful to our intellectual or emotional stability. Recent human genome studies revealed that there are, per generation, about 60 new mutations per genome and about 100 hetrozygous mutations per genome that are predicted to produce a loss of function [7], some of which are likely to affect genes involved in human intellect. . . .�

http://www.uncommondescent.com/intellig ... enerating/

“…According to Dr. John Sanford of Cornell University, every one of us already carries tens of thousands of harmful mutations, and each of us will pass on approximately 100 new mutations to future generations. Humanity is degenerating at an accelerating pace, and at some point the number of mutations will become so great that we will no longer be able to produce viable offspring. This is not going to happen in the immediate future, but already signs of DNA degeneration are all around us. Despite all of our advanced technology, genetically-related diseases are absolutely exploding. Our bodies are weak and frail, and with each passing generation it is getting even worse…�

http://thetruthwins.com/archives/the-hu ... f-humanity

But perhaps those all can be called religious propaganda, when I use them.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 207 by 1213]

Devolution (what your post boils down to) isn't a concept that somehow defeats evolution. In fact, evolution allows for it.
Evolution does not have a set goal. Evolutionist proponents do NOT teach that evolution ONLY happens from simple to more complex. Evolution allows for complex organisms to become simpler over time, if that is the mutation that members of a species has that allows those members to survive.

Your own examples in your own quotes mention it. You mention, in your first quote, a tail bone. If I believe everything you say...why would earlier humans have tail bones? Unless human ancestors had tails...which creationism doesn't allow, doesn't teach. At no point does creationism say that anyone human had tails.
Your conclusions do not follow from the evidence you provide. At the start of your post, you say "If mutations occur, then it proves that degeneration happens". So mutations are only ever harmful?
Nope, not according to the quotes you provide. Your second quote says that 30% of mutations are either neutral or weakly beneficial. How can something that is beneficial be a degeneration.
So you've got an invalid argument here.

[1213]

Evolution does not have a set goal. Evolutionist proponents do NOT teach that evolution ONLY happens from simple to more complex. Evolution allows for complex organisms to become simpler over time, if that is the mutation that members of a species has that allows those members to survive.

That is probably true. Interesting thing is that there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of something getting more complex. All true findings seem to indicate that there was earlier something that was more complete and now it is getting less complete by each mutation that occurs.

Your own examples in your own quotes mention it. You mention, in your first quote, a tail bone. If I believe everything you say...why would earlier humans have tail bones? Unless human ancestors had tails... which creationism doesn't allow

I think creation doesn’t say it couldn’t be possible. Bible doesn’t speak about tail, but it doesn’t either tell that human had two ears when God created human.

But “tail bone� is not necessary proof that humans had once tail, because it is actually useful thing, according to this:

“…it is an important attachment for various muscles, tendons and ligaments—which makes it necessary for physicians and patients to pay special attention to these attachments when considering surgical removal of the coccyx…�
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccyx

It should exist, even if humans have had never tail. Therefore tail bone is actually bad example of rudiment.

Your conclusions do not follow from the evidence you provide. At the start of your post, you say "If mutations occur, then it proves that degeneration happens". So mutations are only ever harmful? Nope, not according to the quotes you provide. Your second quote says that 30% of mutations are either neutral or weakly beneficial. How can something that is beneficial be a degeneration.
So you've got an invalid argument here.

Actually it doesn’t matter if the mutation is beneficial allegedly. In either case, mutation is always mistake in DNA copying. And if we look this following example, isn’t that just degeneration?

Original: Implausibility
copy 1: Imlpausibility
copy 2: Imlpasuibility
copy 3: Impasubiility
….

Isn’t that degeneration? And isn’t that basically same as what is happening in genome, when there happens mutations?

[H.sapiens]

Evolution does not have a set goal. Evolutionist proponents do NOT teach that evolution ONLY happens from simple to more complex. Evolution allows for complex organisms to become simpler over time, if that is the mutation that members of a species has that allows those members to survive.

That is probably true. Interesting thing is that there doesn’t seem to be any evidence of something getting more complex. All true findings seem to indicate that there was earlier something that was more complete and now it is getting less complete by each mutation that occurs.

Wrong. I've answered this too many times, stop wasting everyones' time and look it up for yourself.

Your own examples in your own quotes mention it. You mention, in your first quote, a tail bone. If I believe everything you say...why would earlier humans have tail bones? Unless human ancestors had tails... which creationism doesn't allow

I think creation doesn’t say it couldn’t be possible. Bible doesn’t speak about tail, but it doesn’t either tell that human had two ears when God created human.

But “tail bone� is not necessary proof that humans had once tail, because it is actually useful thing, according to this:

“…it is an important attachment for various muscles, tendons and ligaments—which makes it necessary for physicians and patients to pay special attention to these attachments when considering surgical removal of the coccyx…�
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coccyx

It should exist, even if humans have had never tail. Therefore tail bone is actually bad example of rudiment.

No, it is not "useful" it just requires care during surgery because there are a number of attachments ... which it should be noted are identical to those of other primates, with and without tails.

Your conclusions do not follow from the evidence you provide. At the start of your post, you say "If mutations occur, then it proves that degeneration happens". So mutations are only ever harmful? Nope, not according to the quotes you provide. Your second quote says that 30% of mutations are either neutral or weakly beneficial. How can something that is beneficial be a degeneration.
So you've got an invalid argument here.

Actually it doesn’t matter if the mutation is beneficial allegedly. In either case, mutation is always mistake in DNA copying. And if we look this following example, isn’t that just degeneration?

Original: Implausibility
copy 1: Imlpausibility
copy 2: Imlpasuibility
copy 3: Impasubiility
….

Isn’t that degeneration? And isn’t that basically same as what is happening in genome, when there happens mutations?

You need to learn some genetics, perhaps then you will understand just how wrong and in just how many ways your example is wrong.