I'm an atheist. And I hate this topic.

First, these 'gross impossibilities' of the ark are severely overstated. The bible says that Noah took 'two of every kind, and seven of every clean animal' on the ark. The ark was to be 300 cubits wide, 50 cubits long, and 30 feet wide. A cubit is 22 inches, so therefore 300 x 22 inches = 6,600; 50 x 22 inches = 1,100; 30 x 22 inches = 660
6,600/12 = 550 feet; 1100/12 = 91.7 feet; 660/12 = 55 feet. 550 x 91.7 x 55 = 2,773,925 cubic feet. If we assume that a little less than half (about 45%) of this was taken up by storage and a small area for human living quarters, we are left with 1,525,658 cubic feet.

The following is using a much lower calculation of size (18 inches as the absolute minimum size of a cubit) taken from gotquestions.org.

The total available floor space on the ark would have been over 100,000 square feet, which would be more floor space than in 20 standard-sized basketball courts.

Assuming an 18-inch cubit [45.72 centimeters], Noah's Ark would have had a cubic volume equal to 569 modern railroad stock cars.

The total cubic volume would have been 1,518,000 cubic feet [462,686.4 cubic meters] --that would be equal to the capacity of 569 modern railroad stock cars.

Now comes the question, how many land dwelling air breathing animals would have had to be taken aboard the ark to survive the flood?

According to Ernest Mayr, America's leading taxonomist, there are over 1 million species of animals in the world.

God only provided the Ark for the protection of humans and land-dwelling, air-breathing creatures. A huge number of animals would not need to be taken aboard the Ark because they are water dwellers. Representatives would be expected to survive the catastrophe. With God's protection against extinction during the Deluge, survival would have been assured. (Scene from The World that Perished, a Christian motion picture about the Flood)

However, the vast majority of these are capable of surviving in water and would not need to be brought aboard the ark. Noah need make no provision for the 21,000 species of fish or the 1,700 tunicates (marine chordates like sea squirts) found throughout the seas of the world, or the 600 echinoderms including star fish and sea urchins, or the 107,000 mollusks such as mussels, clams and oysters, or the 10,000 coelenterates like corals and sea anemones, jelly fish and hydroids or the 5,000 species of sponges, or the 30,000 protozoans, the microscopic single-celled creatures.

In addition, some of the mammals are aquatic. For example, the whales, seals and porpoises. The amphibians need not all have been included, nor all the reptiles, such as sea turtles, and alligators. Moreover, a large number of the arthropods numbering 838,000 species, such as lobsters, shrimp, crabs and water fleas and barnacles are marine creatures. And the insect species among arthropoda are usually very small. Also, many of the 35,000 species of worms as well as many of the insects could have survived outside the Ark.

How many animals needed to be brought aboard?

Doctors Morris and Whitcomb in their classic book,The Genesis Flood state that no more than 35,000 individual animals needed to go on the ark. In his well documented book, Noah's Ark: A Feasibility Study, John Woodmorappe suggests that far fewer animals would have been transported upon the ark. By pointing out that the word "specie" is not equivalent to the "created kinds" of the Genesis account, Woodmorappe credibly demonstrates that as few as 2,000 animals may have been required on the ark. To pad this number for error, he continues his study by showing that the ark could easily accommodate 16,000 animals.)

But, let's be generous and add on a reasonable number to include extinct animals. Then add on some more to satisfy even the most skeptical. Let's assume 50,000 animals, far more animals than required, were on board the ark, and these need not have been the largest or even adult specimens.

Remember there are really only a few very large animals, such as the dinosaur or the elephant, and these could be represented by young ones (not babies, but younger and no more than half the size of adults). Assuming the average animal to be about the size of a sheep and using a railroad car for comparison, we note that the average double-deck stock car can accommodate 240 sheep. Thus, three trains hauling 69 cars each would have ample space to carry the 50,000 animals, filling only 37% of the ark. This would leave an additional 361 cars or enough to make 5 trains of 72 cars each to carry all of the food and baggage plus Noah's family of eight people. The Ark had plenty of space.

The bigger problem would have been the construction of the Ark. But the Bible indicates that Noah did this under Divine guidance and there is no reason to believe he did not hire additional workmen.

Also, your comparison of Jesus to 'legends and folklore' is rediculous. Jesus is a historical figure written about, not only in the bible, but in secular texts as well.

To determine if a text is accurate, historians look at these things:

1. The closeness in time and geography to the actual events

2. The number of copies in existence

3. If the copies have blatent contradictions or factual innacuracies

4. If the description of the historical layout (roads, buildings, etc are accurate)

Other ancient documents are concidered reliable, for example- The accounts of the Gallic wars, written by Julius Ceasar and a few others. The earliest copies of these accounts are from 1000 years after the original date of writing and there are only 10 such copies in existence and they are concidered by historians to be accurate.

In contrast, there are over 5000 ancient copies of the new testament in existence, written by eyewitnesses of the events, and many of these date as few as 300 years after they were originally written. Archaeology backs up all of the descriptions of the physical layout of ancient cities described in the new testament. These copies have no significant discrepencies in descriptions of events with each other, or with the current translations (the discrepencies that have been found are typos, not factual problems). If writings with far fewer copies that farther removed from the original timewise are concidered accurate by historians, then the new testament should be concidered VERY accurate. And if the historical and archaeological accounts are accurate, why would the accounts of miracles not be?

THE NEW TESTAMENT DOCUMENTS: THEIR DATE AND ATTESTATION: http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/ffbruce/ntdocrli/ntdocc02.htm

And to say "I don't have any urge to familiarise myself to the Bible" takes away much of your credibility on the subject. In order to argue against any subject, you must be willing to become familiar with that subject.

To answer the question, Is there a God? Yes

i haven't read this topic, but im a atheist, so my answer would be no.

Effect does not prove cause. Like I said before, if you see a big tidal wave, that does not prove how it was formed. It could be hypothisized that the wave came from an asteroid, an earthquake or any other phenomenon that could produce such a wave. Many theories of can be developed to explain a particular cause, the big bang is one of them. If I were to state that God flung the universe into existence in such a way that it is expanding, that would also fit the current observation. I'm just saying that cause cannot be PROVEN by effect if effect is the only thing that can be seen, cause can only be theorized.

first of i think it's quite funny how people defend there opinion.
I think that all the non-believers never be converted to a believer becasue they believe is not a God. while the believers can't imagine people not believe becasue they feel that there is a God.

Anyway

The egyptians believed in multiple gods, like the devel, the rain god, the sun god etc. etc. they had a God for everything. Same with the aztecs the maya's and on and on and on.
It's quite obvious they didn't knew better because they couldnt explain floods, drougts etc. so they decided it was the work of an uppercreature witch they need to satisfy for a good year (but they could make pyramids. doh)
Same with the ancient greek gods. one for the love one for the forests etc etc.

how come we only have one nowadays? did God kill his competition?


aswell, referring to the above, where multiple people saw snapping a leg back into position after it was broken. it's just a massbelieving people powers each other feeling and convince themselfs that they actually saw it and in the end the truth is so much turned that everyone believes it. while in fact the leg wasn't broken anyway. The leg was just pushed in the mud, the guy had alot pain (wich i guess is normal when u got an truck over your leg). after 5 minutes the pain gone away. the snapping sound could be anything. a bird flying of because people scream and a twig fall down to whatever.


when the western people had boats and went to america and all those countries the first thing they did was making churches. the people wich were primitive did'nt believe in God but it mainly got impregnated into their brain. same when you tell a kid when he's very young that your face will be weird when u pull a weird face on 12 midnight. they don't know better.

so, basically, religion is the most common psychological decease on earth wich is profiteble for some, and ignorant for some others.

but like i said before.
believers will most likely never become non-believers
non-believers will most likely never become believers.

For those who believe God doesn't exist I would like you to tell something else that doesn't exist.

When your done with that Explain to me how can one manage to think that our minute intellect is able to wrap itself around the concept of something as great as God

Yes God does exist
If you want to argue about it further message me and I'll hand you to my dad he'll tell you what's up I mean being a bishop and all

To the first guy who called me out:

I recognize that there are dozens of different interpretations and dozens of different doctrines, but at the fault of the Bible? I will disagree. Coming from a Jesuit high school, you should realize that there are lot of long established traditions that don't come from the Bible at all. These traditions and ideas have been put into the religion by men (i like to assume that they were well-meaning men) a long time ago. On top of this, many religions also have political agendas, which in turn changes their doctrine a little bit. Even Hitler used the Bible to make the Jews look bad. This was no different in the times of Jesus, when the Jewish religion became splintered and there were different Jewish sects who believed different things. And in turn, Jesus condemned the Jewish leaders for turning religion into an object of oppression instead of a way to help out the common people. 

 What? Organized religions being used to oppress people and crapping on the commonfolk? Unheard of!

 So I say its a shame that the Bible has been somewhat of a front for a lot of people to do a lot of shady things. The Bible gives us the golden rule in that you should treat people that you want to be treated and to love your neighbor. If the church authorized a crusade to forcefully take over Israel from the Muslims, could you really say that the church was following what the Bible said? 

1 John 4:20 says that if you don't love your brother, then you really don't know God.  

And to the second guy:

(quote) By what standard are you saying that the bible "mantained continuity"? The old testiment is was thrown together by old Jewish redactors and is rittled many mistakes and contradictions...... (/quote)

First of all, point out a specific mistake/contradiction that you find then we can talk. Second of all, the old testament records a lot of history, most of which has been confirmed by secular souces. The existence of Babylon, Assyria, Tyre, Egypt, and the like. So historically speaking, it is continuous. Tell me about the Roman census.

As for prophecies,  I would argue that all the prophecies have come true exactly as they were foretold. I would cite the fall of Judah to Babylon, the fall of Babylon itself, the fall of Persia, the rise and fall of Alexander the Great, and of course the 300+ prophesies surrounding Jesus. 

And there is an overall theme of the Bible. The first prophesy regarding the serpent and the woman, the various covenants, the things that Jesus taught, and the accounts of the apostles in the first century. Clearly there was a point to all of it. The plan was to (and is to) fix all the stuff that is messed up in this world. Jesus taught a lot about the "kingdom of God" and about the stuff it would do. 

 And memo to all:

I encourage everyone to stay away from blanket statements or generalizations if at all possible. Its ok if you believe that Bible is "riddled with mistakes" but its hard for someone to respond to that unless you have a specific point you want to discuss.

Also we cannot lump "scientists" into one huge bloc of authority. Its really easy to do and I've probably been guity of lumping them all together myself. The truth is yes there is a community of scientists but no, they don't all 100% agree with everything.  

The same is true with "religion" as we cannot lump all the religions together as one bloc of authority. I know for a FACT that religions and churches and stuff don't 100% agree with everything.

The fact of the matter is that we all have different viewpoints and opinions of the world. I am presenting to you my own viewpoint. I only urge you to understand where I'm coming from-- i'm not expecting you to accept it as absolute truth.

i believe in god i trust in god..i love god...i believe jesus came and died for are sins...and he rose back up into the heavens...i believe he always forgives for my sins...i love god

(quote) The Miller-Urey experiment. Thats the experiment that we can replicate in any lab where the early atmosphere is replicated in a glass ball, electricity added, and amino acids created. (/quote)

yeah that's what I was referring to. Sorry if I wan't more explicit in my referring to that experiment. So we have amino acids. My protein shake has amino acids in it. It's still a far cry to producing a living, self replicating cell.

I can understand why some people are getting turned off from this subject. The posts are getting way too long (i am to blame for that too)