Ex-JW Took On the Flood

Here is his video:

Noah's Ark: The Story That Disproves the Entire Bible
19th March 2021 | The Truth Hurts
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9XryKMRATE

I took on him, point by point (some points involve more than one time signature).

I

2:10 As a logician, the circle is actually broken by the fact that other reasons show the Bible to be the word of God, namely Jesus' Resurrection, in its turn credited as historical by a Church he had founded 3 years or so before that (3 and a half years before that) and which exists still today, the Catholic Church.

So, no, it is not a circle as logical fallacy.

Just because two things logically prove each other, the circle is not vicious, unless that's the only proof for each, only then is there a vicious circle.

2:17 No, it would be like believing Surah 5 on Jesus' denying divinity, if we had a similar reason to believe Muhammed, human author of the Quran, was in so authoring, a prophet of God. He made no miracles to prove that.

II

2:26 Er, no, the beheaded son in this case got resurrected with an elephant head ... in other words, we do not have any human witnesses to the event.

I just checked, it happened on "Mt.Kailash"* - meaning c. 6638 m above ground level:

"Mount Kailash** (also Kailasa; Kangrinboqê or Gang Rinpoche; Tibetan: གངས་རིན་པོ་ཆེ; simplified Chinese: 冈仁波齐峰; traditional Chinese: 岡仁波齊峰; Sanskrit: कैलास, IAST: Kailāsa), is a 6,638 m (21,778 ft) high peak in the Kailash Range (Gangdisê Mountains), which forms part of the Transhimalaya in the Ngari Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region, China."

This means, the story happened out of reach of human observation, precisely like Muhammed's journey to heaven on a winged horse.

Very contrary to the Ark, where every man now alive would descend from those on it.

* Online with Amma : Lord Ganesha: his birth story, symbolism meaning and practice, 9 August 2000
** wikipedia for Mount Kailash

Sorry I didn't link, but youtube collapses comments of mine if there is a link in them. [Omission repaired on this blog post]

III

3:48 Actually it is not so bizarre at all. One could imagine some kind of story where other details from the Flood had been kept and the destruction by water had been erased.

I actually think Jimmy Aikins gave one Amerindian story which closely parallels the Flood in being survival from another world but where instead of sitting in a dark Ark one had been walking through a dark anthive.

IIII

4:21 The lack of gods in some Flood stories would perhaps be their theologies.

The Babylonian story has two different gods involved - one deciding the destruction, namely Enlil, and another one saving a man with his family, and therefore mankind, Enki.

This is not a distortion from bad retelling techniques, it is a distortion from bad theology. So, of course are those with no gods, except when we are probably dealing with later major Floods, which may have helped to obliterate the memory of Noah's Flood (like one Flood in China, dealt with by an emperor).

V

4:44 The Altai Flood legend involves being told by people who live very deeply inland.

So, it actually speaks against your observation. It is also useful in giving as a hint how Noah could know when waters were 15 cubits over the highest mountains. 1) He was on the highest mountain (meaning pre-Flood mountains were not too high to have fairly flat tops where an Ark could be built), 2) he could have used ropes to do some kind of line sounding.

The Altai legend misses the mountains altogether, it says water rose 80 feet over the plain.

4:51 "nearly all of these legends are from islands or lands that border the sea"

A description that fits human habitation overall very well. Siberia would be a very huge outlier on this one.

VI

5:13 "ignorance of modern science and history"

Why would knowledge of modern history be required to keep overall decent historic records?

Or of modern science?

Btw, I am not "convinced by the table in the insight book" since it leaves out the Altai example. I got that one from TalkOrigins.

VII

5:30 The "logic" is not the "same".

Earthquake legends derive from earthquakes, local floodings legends from local floodings, the same logic would say legends of a world wide Flood derive from a world wide Flood.

There would have been only one of them, if any.

And the point is not these legends being derived from the "legend" in the Bible, that is from the event as retold in Genesis by Moses, the point is them being derived from the one event behind that story.

VIII

6:11 "They were simple speculations and assertions ...."

I don't think you will find it hard to prove that the correspondences exist.

You find it problematic if "eight + mouth" really is derived from the Flood? Well, why wouldn't other interpretations of other correspondences be as problematic? Like the evolution story saying five or fewer tips on the extremities are recurrent in diverse animals because we evolved from a fish with five bones in the fins?

Haven't you simply transferred the respect you had for the institution of Watchtower Society to the institution of "science" and universities?

VIIII

6:56 Here is another claim which could be a game changer.

I claim that Göbekli Tepe (which has certainly been found) is the city of Babel, not Classic Babylon as built by Amorrheans during the Israelite stay in Egypt, but the one in Genesis 11 - between the Flood and us.

I also claim that ""men of renown" in Genesis 6 can be clarly identified as still having renown, namely the heros of Mahabharata. This despite the fact that Hindoos pre-posed the Flood to c. 10 000 years earlier than that or even more.

X

debate

BabyYeeta

Some dude wrote the Bible as a story and somehow it turned the entire world into a cult.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

Somehow ... care to flesh out the details of that somehow?

XI

debate

Red Reaper

Even IF Noah was capable of a supernatural contraceptive, why would he wait five hundred years to have children? So they would be young and dumb so they wouldn’t question the sketchy things he had to do before the flood? 😹

Hans-Georg Lundahl

How about, conditions of man in society before the Flood were such he didn't get a wife or couldn't stay with her until way after his puberty?

A bit like today ...

XII

7:45 I don't think at all that pre-Flood world was before contraceptives, they were mercifully taken away by the Flood.

And getting married as soon as their bodies were physically able arguably became a thing again after the Flood, I think fairly modern conditions may have come into play in the ugly city life of the pre-Flood world.

In other words, Noah was probably stopped from marrying earlier.

Followed

by debate:

Eddie X

The flood isn't real, silly.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Eddie X

• 1) I know very well your position is what "The Truth Hurts" is arguing for;
• 2) your position is what I am arguing against;
• 3) I take great care to go through all of the video and counter all of the arguments;
• 4) this being so, do you have any valid point to counter my answer on this particular topic, Noah's late child bearing?

XIII

8:18 "he probably had greater control over his reproductive powers"

Bizarre indeed. Your family member seems to have been some kind of Malthusian.

He was probably right Noah could abstain from sinning before marriage - but, there is nothing meritorious in married people generally speaking abstaining from procreating (unless times are very bad, which they wouldn't have been all the time for 480 or even just 400 years - puberty may have been later than now in pre-Flood times, and one may have been children or at least barely teens when 20 back then).

debate

followed:

Chrystal Lee

That makes sense. If people lived for hundreds of years then puberty would have been delayed. Today's 13 yr old may have been 313 in biblical times.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Chrystal Lee If you compare with the ages at birth of relevant son of previous patriarchs (Genesis chapter 5), it would seem they could marry at 100, if not earlier.

Noah was certainly delayed in getting these children.

• because he had preferred to be celibate?
• because he was stopped from marrying until fairly late?
• or because he had lost previous sons in pre-Flood wars, or because previous ones didn't listen to him?

XIIII

8:55 Have you tried the idea the couples represented genus or even family level of taxonomy?

Do you realise the hedgehogs are not one species, not one genus, but a subfamily of 16 species in 5 genera?

Let's divide by 16 ...

mammals 343.75
reptiles 625
birds 625

We are up in 1594 couples, except for the few pure animals (none in reptiles).

8:58 amphibians could probably survive outside the Ark as tadpoles and insects on driftweed.

If you like, still dividing by 16, add 438 couples for amphibians.

Insects are not "nephesh khayyah" (a key term in the passage).

[10:28, I get 0.09816425121 per second - 1 in more than ten seconds.

Arguably, 16 is too low a reduction factor.] (the comment was deleted)

I am pretty sure I added something here about each individual animal (if walking in only one by one) having a bit more than 10 seconds.

Given of course my reduction by 16.

However, hedgehogs are only one of two subfamilies, the other being gymnures, and there are 9 species in 5 genera of those. The whole family gives a reduction factor of 25, not just 16.

25 / 16 * 10 seconds = 15.625 seconds.

But suppose instead animals walked in couple by couple, it makes twice that: 31.25 sec.

So, a correct evaluation would be, animal couples walking in one in each half minute.

XV

11:26 Elephants are untypically large for the animals on the Ark, plus Noah could have got a very young couple that only started breeding years after the Flood. Same as with dinos.

I have calculated the freighted weight of the Ark to: 50 thousand 970 metric tons, supposing a cubit of two feet.

I was out, I calculated that total weight of Ark with load when waterline was 15 cubits up was 50,970 metric tons. I took into account that there were three storeys on Ark, and considering foot tons and calculating for even distribution of weight over three storeys, I got it to a centre of gravitation of either 21.37 feet above keel/bottom, if lowest storey count as ten feet up, or if the foot tons are zero because the height is zero, 18 feet above bottom.

Recalculate for 1594 couples or, if you prefer no tadpoles in Flood waters, 2032 couples. Note that average size of an animal on the Ark would have been like small cattle - sheep or things like that.

I think it will fit within 50 thousand 970 metric tons, or even a bit less, if you have a smaller cubit.

Followed

by debate:

Zrips

"Noah could have got a very young couple that only started breeding years after the Flood"
That at best lowers issue and doesn't eliminate it.

"Same as with dinos."
? Dynosaurs lived 69+ million years ago, dating doesn't match suposed flood story...

"supposing a cubit of two feet."
Why do you need to supose anything here? Isint its weird that you need to presupose quite a few things without actually having actual real numbers?

"f you prefer no tadpoles in Flood waters, 2032 couples"
Doesn't make any sense, but lets grant you that...

"Note that average size of an animal on the Ark would have been like small cattle - sheep or things like that." Cool, now calculate that with those 2032 couples in mind. Calculate how much food you would need in a day then multiple it by 365. On top of this major issue, how about carnivores? How about animals which need specific food and cant eat dry grass? How the hell could anyone manage to store food for entire year for 2032 couples with stone age technology?

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Zrips "That at best lowers issue and doesn't eliminate it."

Check the other factor lowering it, namely not counting insects and reducing number of species by 16 to 25, as species within a family could well evolve from a single couple.

"? Dynosaurs lived 69+ million years ago, dating doesn't match suposed flood story..."

We [Young Earth Creationists] obviously believe the date is wrong.

"Why do you need to supose anything here? Isint its weird that you need to presupose quite a few things without actually having actual real numbers?"

Not the least. Noah would have known exactly how long the cubit was, but we have different cubit measures from history, some medieval ones, still in use, have two English feet for a cubit, others - for instance an Egyptian one - have only 18 inches instead of 24. Hence, the word "cubit" is in a historical text from an unknown civilisation (we don't know the pre-Flood civilisation in any detail beyond a few narrative points) is ambiguous at least between 18 and 24 English inches, perhaps even more.

"Doesn't make any sense, but lets grant you that..."

Yes, it does, since amphibians aren't land animals all of their life cycles. One can imagine amphibians in terrestrian adult form on the Ark, or one can imagine tadpoles in the waters.

"Cool, now calculate that with those 2032 couples in mind. Calculate how much food you would need in a day then multiple it by 365."

First google hit:

// We should feed them with the concentrate mixture @ 250 – 350 grams for a sheep in a day. The ration of the sheep should be feed with available green fodder @ 7 kg per sheep in a day. //

I go with 7 kg. Makes : 28,448 kg.
I go with 350 g. Makes : 1,422.4 kg.

"On top of this major issue, how about carnivores?"

There were lots of fish outside the ark and there was a window.

"How about animals which need specific food and cant eat dry grass?"

They would probable be eating less than 7 kg.

"How the hell could anyone manage to store food for entire year for 2032 couples with stone age technology?"

Correction : Nodian technology. While we have Neanderthals and Denisovans with what you'd call stone age technology, we don't have the Nodian technology that also existed in their time. But we need not guess that it was as rudimentary as the very little we can gather from grave goods in those times, as it most often is a case of deliberate burial.

Hans-Georg Lundahl

@Zrips I missed a thing:

28,448 kg = 28,448 kg per day
10,383,520 kg or 10,383.52 metric tons per year.
10,383.52 tons / 50,970 tons = 20.37 % of freighted weight.

Suppose the cubit was just 18 inches, this means 75 % in each direction, so 75 % cubed, 41 %, which would also be the percentage for the weight.

10,383.52 tons / 20,897.7 tons = 49.69 % of freighted weight.

It should be more, since in a year the weight consumed exceeds the body weight. Don't bother with a separate account for "shit weight" since that at end of voyage would depend on food weight at beginning of it.

This means, one would have room for more than just 2000 couples.*

* (footnote)

According to a post I made as follow up, Ark : empty weight and freighted weight, number of couples on the Ark, on my Creationist Blog, I concluded the couples could be from the 2032 here mentioned to 7317.

XVI

12:37 I have not argued for 43 kinds, but I do argue for kinds being generally around the level of "family" in Linnaean terminology, not the level of "species".

12:49 The variety is not all that great. It only sounds impressive if you take the numbers as referring to things as different as hedgehogs from dogs or cats. But 5500 or even over 6000 mammal species refers to minute differences within the hedgehog subfamily or somewhat less subtle ones within the whole Erinaceidae family.

First check on "how many mammal families are there" gave : "There are more than 5,500 species of living mammals, arranged in about 125 families and as many as 27–29 orders (familial and ordinal groupings sometimes vary among authorities)." It's from Encyclopedia Britannica.

Now, the family of Erinaceidae comprehends as most radical variety within it, whether spikes are hard and directable, as with hedgehogs or only extra thick hairs, as with gymnures.

Also, the varieties started separating c. 5000 years ago. Since last time I checked, there are now one species more of hedgehog, so seventeen hedgehog species.

I think 5000 years is enough for Indian Long Eared Hedgehog to get long ears or for it to keep them while other species lose them. And even for gymnures to lose some hardness in the spikes.

XVII

13:15 If we accept one species of monkey stepped or climbed off the ark, and evolved into over 330 species, we would not 5000 years into the future have the square of that, for two reasons:

• 1) species do not only split, they also die off altogether
• 2) there arguably won't be any year 7000 AD, since Christ was born in the fulness of time, 5200 - 5500 years after creation.

XVIII

14:28 Baraminological answer: your turtle obviously can survive in nature too, somewhere.

And if turtles on the ark were two, they were arguably hardier than the musk turtle.

Evolution since then has been a narrowing of possible habitats for more than one of the species, arguably for each of them, and would therefore be better termed a devolution.

14:42 "the turtle would not have been able to survive off the ark in the global ocean"

That one wouldn't.

Same answer for the other one, plus, no, electricity and petrol based technologies aren't indispensable for creating turtle friendly micro-environments.

Check with the ark encounter. I think there are even live amphibians in the kind of storage they arranged with pre-modern technologies (yeah, frogs aren't turtles, but anyway ...).

XVIIII

15:02 It actually says "in the montains of Ararat" meaning the Armenian mountain range.

The "Mount Ararat" you refer to only got its name much later as one guess on where the Ark landed.

My own - also in Mountains of Armenia - is Mount Judi. It is a tradition among both Jewish and Muslim locals there.

15:12 "from the starting point to the finishing point"

Sorry, but the Bible actually doesn't specify where the starting point was.

It's a popular meme among creationists of the 50's that it was in Iraq, but it actually doesn't say so in the Bible.

Considering however that the ark had no sails, no oars, no other propulsion, and that waves may go very far, but won't necessarily bring along a thing that's just floating on top of them, the "short" distance is no problem for a global flood.

What is problematic is, if Noah wasn't on the highest mountain that the pre-Flood world could offer, he could not know when the Ark took off from ground that water had reached 15 cubits above the highest mountains, just that it had reached 15 cubits above where he was. I credit him with geographical knowledge where the highest pre-Flood mountain was, and I credit pre-Flood mountains with being so low and having so flat tops, that it was possible to built the ark on the highest of them.

XX

15:30 I believe that the "top of Mount Everest" (anachronistic term for the period) would just after the Flood have been on or very little above seashore level.

All of these mountains rose after the Flood. Mount Judi was already there.

15:47 "they had no idea that these mountains even existed"

Well, for Shem, Ham and Japheth just after the Flood, rightly so - they didn't exist back then.

15:49 "of these continents"

I consider the Americas were reached by post-Flood man c. 123 years after the Flood, according to my carbon 14 tables (this is what 20 000 BP reduces to in them).

Therefore the space in geography would have been known, even if just after the Flood it was hard to orient itself to them.

Btw, for the peopling of Americas, I agree with Spanish theologians who spoke of Atlantis - still being there after the Flood, sinking after people had passed.

XXI

16:46 "22 feet in height around 2900 BC"

The archaeologists carbon dating sth to 2900 BC would have been dealing with something after the time of Abraham (according to my carbon 14 calibration, already alluded to).

This was not the Flood, and any vessel surviving that smaller flooding would not have landed either on Mount Ararat or on Mount Judi. Any vessel surviving it would likely have come to a shore of it with people already there and therefore have not concluded that the flooding was a global Flood.

Btw, a flooding may leave a trace in terms of mud, but how did they figure out it was 22 feet high?

17:24 If you think Sumerian nobles in Shurruppak would have had geographical knowledge of Mount Ararat, or that a flood 22 feet high in Shurruppak would have reached to Armenian Mountains, you should perhaps read up a bit on hydrology, sources of Sumerian culture, geography.

See this extract from 3 wiki articles:

Cizre, height over sea level / elevation : 377 m (1,237 ft)
Shuruppak - doesn't say, but it's 55 km S of Nippur
Nippur, Height 20 metres

A flooding in Nippur 8 metres high would not reach to Cizre, at the foot of Mount Judi.

And where does any Sumerian source even mention Mount Ararat or mountains of Urartu as landing place for Utnapishtim?

The Gilgamesh Epic actually features (arguably as little realistically, if the flooding was only 22 feet high) Mount Nisir, in Sulaymaniyah, in Kurdistan. Elevation : 882 m

XXII

18:15 I don't think the theory is very well chosen.

Many animals would survive elsewhere and get extinct near Mount Judi - or first couple flee in a direction before dying already far away from Mount Judi.

Then again, the landscape is very densely inhabited by humans - who as known have a somewhat lethal influence, from time to time, on animals.

XXIII

20:11 "to an indoctrinated mind"

In fact, to a Christian mind.

Jesus is God, Who cannot lie.
He also would not have been able to be ignorant of doctrinal truth, since what He came to do was "witness to truth".

Obviously, if you have gone Atheist or Jew or Odinist, that's not an issue.

But if you are a Christian, indoctrinated or not, it is.

Btw, I have just indirectly stated that people like "Bishop" Robertson or "Bishop" John Shelby Spong are NOT Christians. And I obviously mean that. Whether these two became so before getting before judgment, I think it's unlikely but not totally impossible, but the texts they leave behind are apostasy.

XXIIII

20:55 You spent 25 years of your life? [Going from door to door.]

That would make you at least 43, if you started at 18? You don't look that age!

22:30 I have the critical thinking skills to realise your debunking doesn't work, and adding your personal story with some emotional appeal doesn't do it for me either.

Zrips, Eddie X, BabyYeeta and Red Reaper have so far not answered more than is here visible, as per 2.X.2021, 13:56 Paris time.

Dito at 17:43 Paris time, when I add one more reply to Zrips. The 50 thousand and more metric tons are from the post For Sea-Farers .... on my creationist blog./HGL