hatmoza said:
As for Noah, I do believe he's real, the story of the arc is real... Noah being drunkard is completely rejected however in Islam. That's a fabrication. Actually anything about 'prophets sinning' in all forms of the old and new testaments is rejected. Yes I believe angels come, came and are on Earth.
I always feel left out when atheists go after the easy target. |
As a muslim. We reject the bible -despite many truths in it- because of the man-made alterations over the years. It's why it's an easy target for critics of religion.
I think Islam is just as easy a target. The thing is that in the places where Islam is most commonly practiced, questioning Islam can literally be punished by death.
In America Christianity is more prevalent, so it makes more sense to discuss it. Furthermore, Islam is frankly unpopular in general here, so you don't have to really work very hard to get people to say it's false.
To clarify though, when you say Bible do you mean the new testament, or the old? Because from my understanding the Jewish version of the old testament was relatively consistent. It is a bit similar to the Qu'ran in that there are rules set up about how it can be replicated.
As for Noah, I do believe he's real, the story of the arc is real... Noah being drunkard is completely rejected however in Islam. That's a fabrication. Actually anything about 'prophets sinning' in all forms of the old and new testaments is rejected.
So... in the story of Noah, Noah built by far the largest wooden ship ever created. Building such a ship would have been a nearly impossible tast with the amount of wood in the middle east at the time. Even if it took 120 years as some claim, I still think gathering the wood alone would be impossible. The ship itself would be larger than any wooden boat man would be able to build, even thousands of years later. Any similar ship would need iron braces to hold together in normal circumstances.
In the flood situation though, things are much more difficult. The atmosphere can hold about enough water to create one cubic inch of rain globally at any one time. For the flood to completely cover the Earth in the 40 days suggested, there would have to be 289 cubic miles of rainfall per second. There is no way any ship is going to survive that, or that such an event wouldn't leave a MASSIVELY OBVIOUS geological footprint. Seriously, think of the WORST rainstorm you've ever seen. Now, multiply that amount of water by about 10 billion. That ship's going to do about as well as the titanic. And, where did the water go? That amount of water could not evaporate into the atmosphere.
And, the animals. Now, if you go with two of each species (there are some alternate translations) you have the problem that one infertile animal means that species is extinct. Beyond that, you have the size of the thing. There would need to be several hundreds of thousands of species or more if we were to account for the amount of diversity today. There is not enough room.
Even if we assume there were just 5000 animals, this would still be an impossible task. Most animals will not survive a year in a dark enclosed space, especially with a deluge of water constantly tossing their boat around. Meeting the dietary needs of all of these animals would be impossible. A giant panda for instance eats about 40 pounds of bamboo in a day. Even if we assume that the pandas go on a strict diet and eat 5 pounds of bamboo a day, you would still need about 3000 pounts of bamboo on the ship to keep them alive for a year. This problem is even worse with meat eaters as there was no refrigeration.
And you also need water. It's not like you could go out and get some of the water falling from the sky, so you'd need enough water to keep thousands of animals quenched for a year.
The amound of man hourse needed to feed all of the animals, give them water, eliminate their urine and shit, take care of any immediate medical needs, care for the young being born, and so on would be impossible, even if Noah and his family worked several times faster than the average human and never slept.
Running a zoo is a complex process. Something like the Bronx Zoo has hundreds of workers. A small ark with non-ideal conditions, in the middle of a massive storm, with far more animals, could not feasibly survive. In addition to diet, there are many other needs animals have that would not be met. For example, simply eliminating their waste from the ship would be a near impossible task. If we assume 5000 animals, the amount of waste produced would be in the neighborhood of 5 tons a day, or 10,000 pounds of animal excrement. This would be a tough task for even the most modern of sewage systems. Unless there was a hold leading directly to the ocean (and that would be a bad idea for very obvious reason). Someone was going to have to dump all of this waste overboard. Someone would also have to clean all of the residue before it created a toxic environment.
Of course, I'm wondering why Allah had to drown millions of animals anyway. I mean were they sinners? Seems like a dick move, Allah.
So, part of the reason I did this whole write up is because I'm fairly sure I'll bring up this up again to someone else. If you want to take the Old Testament literally, then you have to believe in this story that defies the laws of logic and physics. My point is... that with all that wacky stuff... Noah getting drunk is the part you find unbelievable? Like, thousands of animals on an ark, ok. An old dude getting drunk, OMG NO WAY!
Yes I believe angels come, came and are on Earth.
And what is the justification for this belief?
