The Ark - materials, construction and seaworthness

Excuse me? You haven't got a case to rest!I could just as well have spent the last twenty posts arguing that Noah had Warp Drive. It would be no more science fiction that what you have propoed.If it IS God we are talking about then I propose that He gave Noah anti-gravity technology which allowed the Ark to float above the flood. Noah also had a DNA replication machine that stored the DNA sequences of every known animal and then recreated them from scratch after the flood.Now prove me wrong!Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

...because he is a character in a mythical story! His "means" are irrelevent to technology, archaeology and history because they provide no evidence.We don't know Santa's "means", do we? Can you tell me how Santa's sleigh is able to float?A lack of evidence doesn't demonstrate your case, it simply makes all your assumptions utterly baseless. The evidence we DO have totally discounts the entire myth.Like others have said to Faith, the honest position for you to take on this is just to argue that "Goddidit" and not attempt to bend science, history and archaeology to fit your faith.

Iron use has been found as early as 4000 BC in Sumer, so why
did it take humans till victorian times to build steam engines? I mean, the Sumerians had "iron and intelligence" didn't they?Technology advances through the accumulation of knowledge, the raw materials alone don't demonstrate your case. Invention aside, one also needs a suitable social infrastructure to take on large, technically diffcult projects - manpower to build, to source materials and to feed workers, for example.

Nice diversion, Iano!So, how many animals were on the ark?

We know the Egyptians (as well as other cultures) build tombs. We have observed them. Given that tombs are a known feature of human culture in general, one can hypothesize about their existence.Same goes for the old SETI argument. Humanity is one known example in the universe of a civilization with communications technology based around electromagnetism. There *might* be others, although the chances of finding them are very slim. Only a tiny fraction of available research budgets go anywhere near this field.No one, on the other hand, has ever observed God or intelligent design. Nor does any of the evidence gathered point to it.Now, one might argue (as Iano has) that we can use Human design as some kind of guide, but as we have no scientific evidence for God himself we have no grounds on which to make assumptions about his design methods.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.

I posted a refutation of this comment before you even made it!!There IS evidence of intelligent life having arisen in the universe - humanity! As for odds, we cannot truly know given that we have a sample pool of exactly one. Looking for life out in the universe gives us a bigger sample and a means to properly answer such a question... Which is why science seeks to establish "objective reality" by means of repeatable experimentation carried out by a multitude of individuals.Your "subjective reality" doesn't, for example, change how a TV works! Well I haven't, so I won't.

"Alien" is a relative term. SETI searches for extra-terrestrial *intelligence*. We are a (reasonably!) intelligent civilization. There may be others.There is, as yet, no real evidence for any "intelligent" civilization except ourselves, but our very existence demonstrates that it CAN exist. The SETI hypothesis has a clear foundation.God's very existence, on the other hand, has not been established.Edited by RickJB, : No reason given.