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Even if you're not religious, you don't know whether or not such an ark ever existed. Even if you don't believe in the Bible as being an accurate recording of e

Even if you're not religious, you don't know whether or not such an ark ever existed. Even if you don't believe in the Bible as being an accurate recording of events, it's still possible that some of the stories could have been based, even in part, on actual events. Let's take Noah's Ark for example. It has been claimed that there is evidence that such a flood may have actually taken place [1]. It's even been claimed by some explorers that they found remains of a large ark-like vessel (though the fact that these explorers were evangelical Christians makes the credibility dubious, and thus seems unlikely) [2]. I'm not saying whether or not this stuff happened or whether or not I believe it. All I'm saying is, given that stories could be based, even if exaggerated, on actual events, and given that unbelievable feats of engineering and construction exist from long ago, like the pyramids for example; it seems closed-minded to make disingenuous and dismissive statements about something we don't know with certainty. [1] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/10/evidence-noahs-flood-ark-real-robert-ballard-archeologist-titanic_n_2273143.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/10/evidence-noahs-floo... [2] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/100428-noahs-ark-found-in-turkey-science-religion-culture/ http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/100428-noahs...

bunderbunder 14y ago
Perhaps there's a kernel of truth in there, in the form of a boat. But kernels of truth can get pretty amazingly distorted over the course of centuries or millennia of developing mythology. There's a kernel of truth to the Greek myth of the Cyclops, but it has nothing to do with giant one-eyed men. It's fossil elephant skeletons, with their nasal cavity looking a lot like a huge eye socket. Even given, for the sake of argument, that at some point there was an actual boat at the root of this myth, the likelihood that this Ark is a replica of that boat is only not a whole lot greater than the likelihood that the world did actually experience a rainfall rate of 12 inches per minute over the course of forty days. The vessel described in Genesis is simply not plausible, neither from an engineering nor a historical perspective.
- JangoSteve 14y ago
  You seem to get my point at the beginning of your comment when you acknowledge that it's possible there's a kernel of truth in the form of a boat. But then by the end of your comment, you for some reason concluded that the vessel described in Genesis is not plausible. No kidding. We weren't talking about the vessel as described in genesis, we were talking about the boat that may have possibly existed at some point which may have inspired the story. Unless you're saying this guy built the boat as described in Genesis. But that wouldn't make sense, because it's not plausible from an engineering perspective, and well, this guy built it, so his boat is plausible from an engineering perspective.
Shorel 14y ago
Even if something like that happened, it has been first recorded in Mesopotamian texts and myths, by people who worshiped very different gods, and much later retconned in the bible versions we know now.
illuminate 14y ago
"you don't know whether or not such an ark ever existed" I know that there was never an ark as described and used, literally, in the Bible.

bunderbunder 14y ago

Perhaps there's a kernel of truth in there, in the form of a boat. But kernels of truth can get pretty amazingly distorted over the course of centuries or millennia of developing mythology. There's a kernel of truth to the Greek myth of the Cyclops, but it has nothing to do with giant one-eyed men. It's fossil elephant skeletons, with their nasal cavity looking a lot like a huge eye socket. Even given, for the sake of argument, that at some point there was an actual boat at the root of this myth, the likelihood that this Ark is a replica of that boat is only not a whole lot greater than the likelihood that the world did actually experience a rainfall rate of 12 inches per minute over the course of forty days. The vessel described in Genesis is simply not plausible, neither from an engineering nor a historical perspective.

JangoSteve 14y ago
You seem to get my point at the beginning of your comment when you acknowledge that it's possible there's a kernel of truth in the form of a boat. But then by the end of your comment, you for some reason concluded that the vessel described in Genesis is not plausible. No kidding. We weren't talking about the vessel as described in genesis, we were talking about the boat that may have possibly existed at some point which may have inspired the story. Unless you're saying this guy built the boat as described in Genesis. But that wouldn't make sense, because it's not plausible from an engineering perspective, and well, this guy built it, so his boat is plausible from an engineering perspective.

Shorel 14y ago

Even if something like that happened, it has been first recorded in Mesopotamian texts and myths, by people who worshiped very different gods, and much later retconned in the bible versions we know now.

illuminate 14y ago

"you don't know whether or not such an ark ever existed" I know that there was never an ark as described and used, literally, in the Bible.