Noah and the arc

• rydawg5

  Many people in my church believe that earth is actually 10,000 years old or however long the Bible's timeline seems to be.
  
  My problem with this is, Noah. Noah and his family was the only survivors of the flood in the bible. I'm thinking it was like 6,000 years ago?
  
  If this is the case, a family of 8 or something, gets off the boat and dozens of ethnic groups exist after 6,000 years?
  
  My problem with this is, you can easily look back 2,000-3,000 years and see there was dozens of ethnic groups.
  
  That means in the 3,000 years after Noah, dozens of new ethnic groups formed from Noah.
  
  Why does this anger people to ask this question? Does it make me less of a believer to wonder this?
• Fab1b

  

  Its called a story in a book written by man in man's words. A story!!
• thePITman

  

  rydawg5;850267 wrote:Why does this anger people to ask this question? Does it make me less of a believer to wonder this?

  
  It shouldn't anger anyone. As for your second question, I'm pretty sure it says in the Bible that we are supposed to question these types of things and others, which should lead us to further investigation and personally-led research of His Word. It is definitely an interesting question I've never contemplated, before.
  
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzF5aQ8X-hA
  Haha.
• O-Trap

  

  Arc?
• justincredible

  

  Noah is a fictional character. IMO, of course.
• Tobias Fünke

  

  rydawg5;850267 wrote:Many people in my church

  
  
  Many people in your church are wrong.
  
  I was once pretty close to a girl who was on her way to vet school and rather gorgeous and had to break it off because I couldn't comprehend how someone who has like a 3.7 cum GPA in Biology/Chemistry double major can believe the Bible is word-for-word correct.
• Little Danny

  

  On the other hand, I have a hard time accepting those who beleive the Earth is 100 Millions years old or me. That seems to be a ridiculously long period of time IMO. Even if you buy into the arguments 50-75 million did not involve complex life forms, if man has been around for that long of a period of time I would think there would be evidence of it.
• rydawg5

  Little Danny;850351 wrote:On the other hand, I have a hard time accepting those who beleive the Earth is 100 Millions years old or me. That seems to be a ridiculously long period of time IMO. Even if you buy into the arguments 50-75 million did not involve complex life forms, if man has been around for that long of a period of time I would think there would be evidence of it.

  
  well.. at least that would give us time to become different ethnics. How long does it take for an Middle Eastern man to become a Caucasian or Hispanic or Chinese?
• O-Trap

  

  I just don't care how old the earth is, though I do think it's significantly older than 10,000 years.
• Fab1b

  

  What's the word I'm looking for?
  
  
  
  Fiction
• justincredible

  

  Fab1b;850383 wrote:What's the word I'm looking for?
  
  
  
  Fiction

  
  I already said that. Sort of.
• Fab1b

  

  justincredible;850390 wrote:I already said that. Sort of.

  
  Point?
  
  
  
  Just agreeing. I just don't get religion!
• justincredible

  

  Fab1b;850392 wrote:Point?
  
  
  
  Just agreeing. I just don't get religion!

  
  The point is, why are you looking for a word that I already found? Dingleberry.
• Cleveland Buck

  

  You have to think about who is telling the story of Noah in Genesis and where they got the information from. Just because God flooded that region of the world doesn't mean he flooded the entire planet. The people in China or South America weren't being discussed in the Old Testament, and the people who were involved in the flood had no knowledge of the world anywhere outside the Middle East, so of course to them, the flood covered the whole world. That doesn't mean in reality that the whole world was repopulated from those 8 people. When Genesis tells about the creation of man it says God created Adam and Eve, but it doesn't say He didn't create people elsewhere in the world.
• ernest_t_bass

  

  I think that the earth is very old, millions (if not billions) of years. I'm a believer. I don't believe the "days" of which the Bible speaks are referring to a literal 24 hour day.
• justincredible

  

  
• krambman

  

  A few things . . .
  
  First of all, it is clear that not everything in the Bible is to be taken literally. There are some things in scripture that are recorded and meant to be believed as historical fact (the resurrection of Christ, for instance). There are other things in scripture that are intended more as moral tales, designed to teach a lesson rather than to be believed as historic fact (the story of Job is a good example, as it is likely that book was intended more as a story an it's unlikely that there was ever a historic Job who lived out the events of the book). The story of Noah and the ark could possibly be one of these stories that is intended to teach a lesson and not to be believed as historical fact (although Noah is mentioned and commended for his faith in Hebrews 11, so it's likely that Noah was an actual historic figure and that the story of the flood is supposed to be understood as historic fact).
  
  Second, when we look at archaeology and anthropology, the Bible and science line up pretty well. The Bible says that creation happened sometime around 10,000 years ago (if you believe the seven days of creation are a literal seven 24-hour days). Anthropologically, modern humans (homo sapien sapien) first appeared on the earth around the same time. We also know geologically of a large scale flood event that happened in Eastern Europe and the Middle East around the same time as the Noah flood.
  
  Third, when it comes to comparing the scientific age of the earth to the Biblical age of the earth, understanding the discrepancy isn't difficult. God simply could have created things with time already in them. For instance, when he created a rock, even though that rock was brand new, it is possible that he created it with thousands of years of history already in it. Lets look at the creation of Adam as an example for this. The moment after God created Adam he was only one second old, just like a new born baby. However, unlike a newborn, Adam already has, say, 20 years of life inside of him. He wasn't created as an infant, he was created as a fully grown man, so he had to have been created with time already in him, even though he was brand new.
  
  Fourth, most ancient cultures have a similar story as the Noah story. Either this was simply a popular story that was being passed around from one culture to another, or it was based on an actual event that was large enough to be known throughout the ancient world.
  
  Finally, if you believe that an all-powerful God created the entire universe, if you believe that he commanded Noah to build an ark and that he flooded the entire world, is it really that much of a stretch to believe that over the course of a few thousand years that same God couldn't have created a multitude or races and ethnic groups?
• Fab1b

  

  Because I can
• password

  

  krambman;850415 wrote: Finally, if you believe that an all-powerful God created the entire universe, if you believe that he commanded Noah to build an arc and that he flooded the entire world, is it really that much of a stretch to believe that over the course of a few thousand years that same God couldn't have created a multitude or races and ethnic groups?

  
  Maybe God created all ethnic groups at the same time. He then realized that having different ethnic groups living together was a bad idea, so he had Noah create the ARK and then he flooded the universe to cleanse it of all other ethnic groups. My question is, how did he decide which ethnic group was allowed to survive?
  
  Do you think he regrets allowing Noah to be captian of the ARK?
• O-Trap

  

  Just because it's bothering me:
  
  Ark:
  
  
  Arc:
  
• dwccrew

  

  justincredible;850338 wrote:Noah is a fictional character. IMO, of course.

  
  Yous going to hell.
• 1_beast

  

  someone had to pick cotton...juust sayin............
• j_crazy

  

  Tobias Fünke;850343 wrote:Many people in your church are wrong.
  
  I was once pretty close to a girl who was on her way to vet school and rather gorgeous and had to break it off because I couldn't comprehend how someone who has like a 3.7 cum GPA in Biology/Chemistry double major can believe the Bible is word-for-word correct.

  
  lulz.
• Tiernan

  Did she ever yell out "Oh God!" or "OH LORD JESUS!" when you were banging her? Probably not becuz it was you doin the banging.
• krambman

  

  O-Trap;850429 wrote:Just because it's bothering me:
  
  Ark:
  

  
  This is why I shouldn't post at 1:00am.