13 PAGES DEEP: Page four, Part 2

"Such is the human race, often it seems a pity that Noah and his party didn't miss the boat." 
Mark Twain

When we last left Noah he had just received news that his three unborn sons and their future wives, his wife and himself were to be spared God's aquatic genocide. This on the heels of learning about his new occupation as ship builder. Well, when it rains it pours because in Genesis 6:19 God then informs Noah that he is about to become caretaker of the world's largest floating phylogenetically complete zoo. "And of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort shalt thou bring into the ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and female." Furthermore, "Of fowls after their kind, and cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the earth after his kind, two of every sort shall come unto thee, to keep them alive." So Noah, who probably knew a thing or two about goats and sheep, was somehow now expected to know how to care for all the animals and insects of the world. Strange, exotic creatures that he would have never imagined in his wildest dreams even existed were now to be in his charge. Don't forget, according to Christian logic, this would include dinosaurs. Would you know how to care for a dinosaur? What do you feed a hungry dinosaur? Oh, I know, every fucking thing else on the ark!

Let's set aside our thoughts of Velociraptors and T-Rex's running amok on the ark for a moment and consider the Henry Doorly zoo in Omaha Nebraska. It is the world's largest zoo. There are some zoos that are bigger, but only in terms of actual acreage and not animal species. As it is, The Doorly zoo sits on 130 acres of land. It has around 17,000 animals representing 962 different species. A mere drop in the bucket with regard to an overall representation of all animal species, but pretty damned impressive just the same. Remember, it is the world's LARGEST zoo. It features the largest cat complex in North America and has the world's largest indoor Swamp, rain forest and desert. The desert is contained in the world's largest glazed geodesic dome. However, zoos, even the world's largest aren't the ideal place for animals. No matter how expansive, or accurately habitational they are made, they are often never an exact representation of most animals natural environments. As a result, 10-15% of the animals kept in captivity die each year.

The Henry Doorly Zoo from above. 130 acres, housing around 17,000 animals, representing only 962 animal species of the estimated 8.7 million species of life on Earth.

How many people do you suppose the Herny Doorly zoo employs to take care of it's animals? I wish I knew. I cannot find an answer to this question on line and am still waiting for a response from the zoo itself. My guess would be more than eight. However, I did find the requirements for your basic entry level caretaker and they are as follows: a four-year college degree. Training in animal science, zoology, marine biology, conservation biology, wildlife management, animal behavior, or other related field. Do you think that Bronze Age desert dwellers would make the grade?

Not ready for prime time Zookeepers 

To date, we have named and catalogued over a million species of life.  Scientists discover on average, 15,000 new species each year. So far, this rate of discovery shows no sign of abatement. In fact, a recent study estimates that there are about 8.7 million species of life on earth. (click me for species study) The number of different species that would have had to make it on to Noah's ark in order to account for the diversity in creatures that we find today would have been prodigious to say the least. Keeping this in mind, we are to believe that Noah and his family were able to share space on God's improbable lifeboat with two of every kind of animal then in existence. Well that shouldn't have been a big problem right? Except, it kinda is. A problem that is in orders of magnitude bigger than say, the inconvenience of having to explain to the police and your wife why there is a dead hooker in your closet.

Click on cartoon to enlarge if you are as blind as I am.

Christian apologists, using their own very special math, have tried to whittle the number of animals on Noah's ark down to 16,000. They should be embarrassed by this gross miscalculation, but using this absurdly low number does nothing to undermine the ridiculousness of this lark. If we recall, the ark's floor plan was 450' x 75' x 3 floors.  Allowing for walls one foot thick, which they would have had to be minimally, you end up with 448' x 73' x 3 floors which gives you 98,112 sq ft. One third of this space would be unavailable because it might be a novel idea to install stairs and ramps for access and egress and structural support to keep the ark from collapsing in on itself. Not to mention pens for the animals. Oh, and don't forget the aquarium tanks, (complete with high ground) that you would need for the amphibians.

Seems probable that Noah would have a set up like this to house every species of amphibian, right?

 Biological fun fact: amphibians can live on both land and in water, but not exclusively in either. Flooding the entire planet for over a year means that amphibians drown. You would also need magically oxygenated  aquariums (In Lieu of magic, today we commonly use electricity to power pumps and filters, something even Christian apologists wouldn't say was available to Noah. At least, not yet.)  to house the shit load of fish that live only in fresh water and for those that live only in salt water. Why? Because covering surface of the earth completely in water would mean mixing all of it's fresh and salt water together. This means entire species of fish would- sleep with the fishes.

So now we are down to about 65,00 square feet. Christian apologists have cited "scientists"  who have determined that when you average the size of all creatures during the time of Noah, from say, fleas (about the size of a grain of rice weighing 0.8 grams.)  all the way up to Argentinosaurus (120 feet long, 70 feet high, weighing over 100 tons) you come up with an animal the size of a sheep.

Click on image to enlarge and see the size Noah would be relative to Argentinosaurus.

But wait, wouldn't all of these creatures, including Noah and his mates need food and water? Not to worry, because the Good Lord, wellspont of infinite giving that he is, provides just that in Genesis 6:21 "And take thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for thee; and for them." Well that's simple enough, just go "gather it to thee." So somehow after mustering the resources to build what was at the time, the world's largest boat, Noah now must come up with the capital to obtain enough food and water for his family and 16,000 animals to live on at sea for over a year. Sounds plausible. Question: how in Zeus's blue butt would Noah know what all of these animals ate? Did he know that Koalas, which he couldn't even had possibly heard of in his time, eat only eucalyptus leaves?

I am a bit of a Diva.

Would he know that of the 700 species of eucalyptus trees, most grow only in Australia, with a smattering found in Indonesia, New Guinea, and the Philippines? Would he know that of those 700 species of eucalyptus trees, koalas will only eat 14 as their primary food source? Would he know which 14? Speaking of cute, fuzzy animals, what about panda bears? Very unlikely Noah ever saw one of these, especially when you consider that they hail from China, you know, homeland of the civilization that existed thousands of years before the creation. Do I even have to ask how Noah would know that pandas only ate bamboo?

Koalas and pandas are primarily plant eaters. What about the carnivores? How would Noah store meat for them? In magical refrigerators? Well if Noah had a magic fridge he must have put the smallpox virus in there because it wouldn't have survived the flood either. Nor would have pneumonia, measles, typhus, typhoid fever, syphilis, poliomyelitis, gonorrhea and leprosy just to name a few other germs that, except under very special lab conditions, cannot exist outside of the human body. Unless of course you are willing to concede that one or all of Noah's clan had contracted every disease known to man before their fateful trip.

Could one or all of Noah's group been "patient zero" for every disease on Earth today?

 Biologically, the authors of the Bible were not different at all from you or me. Their brains were precisely the same size as ours. It's not that they were stupid, they were just ignorant to a bazillion facts that we now know and understand through the attrition of time and a ever growing compendium of knowledge. In much the same way that people thousands of years from now will look back upon our commonly held beliefs, innovations and science and see a very primitive civilization. This disparity of knowledge now grows at a exponential rate because computer technology enables developments and breakthroughs to occur at an incredible rate of speed that is constantly increasing. It is estimated that computers will be as complex as the human brain in only decades. Futurists like Ray Kurzweil envision a brain-computer interface called "singularity" where we will reach superintelligence through computer aided bio-enhancements. In other words, the Xboxes and Playstations of the future may be a pill you swallow or a chip inserted into your head.

Before the industrial revolution, (1750-1850) and certainly before the advent of computer technology and the world wide net, the progress of information, ideas and innovations moved sluggishly ahead. Often this progress was bogged down and stifled by religious doctrine. In 1633 Galileo was rewarded for his significant contributions to observational astronomy by Pope Urban VIII with a life sentence of house arrest for offending his Holiness's delicate sensibilities with his heretical idea that the earth revolved around the sun. He remained in home bound captivity until he died at age 77 in 1642.

 Pope Urban VIII "schools" Galileo on "what's up" with outer space.

I once read that if it were not for all the world's religious interference we might have had the Internet before the industrial revolution. That sounds a little far fetched, but just Imagine what Einstein could have accomplished with a computer. Further along in history, during the Holocaust, Pope Pius XII would remain publicly indifferent at best to the plight of the Jewish people and while the Vatican has yet to excommunicate a single Nazi they did eventually find it in their hearts to forgive Galileo of his heinous crime and pardon him posthumously in 1992. Ah, the beauty of enlightenment.

 To be fair, amazing displays of ignorance are not limited to the spiritually inclined. Men of science can be equally obtuse. Take for instance the case of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis. Slightly ahead of the personal hygiene curve, in 1847 Dr. Semmelweis put forth the idea that doctors should wash their hands in between attending to patients. Especially when delivering babies. At the time, infant mortality was horrible. What perplexed him, and what became the impetus for his theory was the fact that midwives at the clinic where he practiced were having much greater success delivering babies than learned doctors.  After eliminating all other possible causes he determined that the only difference between the midwives and the doctors was that the midwives did not have their hands shoved in the guts of cadavers as doctors often did before attempting a delivery. Unknowingly, he had stumbled onto the doorstep of germ theory. 

He postulated that some 'cadererous material' was the culprit and decided that washing one's hands with in a solution of chlorinated lime (or calcium hypochlorite, a compound used today in household bleach.) would do the trick. Once the doctors at the clinic started washing their hands infant mortality all but disappeared with their patients.

It is hard to imagine how many babies Dr. Semmelweis saved with his discovery. If the story ended here you probably would have known his name already. However, his suggestion to other doctors to wash their hands offended their delicate sensibilities. He was practically laughed out of his profession and as a result of being unable to convince the medical world of his lifesaving theory, he had a nervous breakdown. He was committed to a mental hospital against his will and when he tried to leave the guards beat him severely. He was laced into a straight jacket and thrown into a dark cell where he was occasionally treated to cold water dousings and forced to drink castor oil. He would die at 47 only two weeks after being admitted. Ironically, germs killed him. He died from an infection caused by the beatings.

Well, at least they put him on a stamp after they ridiculed and drove him insane and to an early grave.

So where were we? Oh yeah, trying to shove 16,000 animals whose size was averaged out to that of sheep into the ark. For a sheep to stand in one spot it would need about 4 square ft. 4 square ft x 16,000 = 64,000 sq ft. Guess what? We are just about exactly out of room. And this is the best case scenario only if all of the animals stand in one spot and don't move during the entire voyage.  Unfortunately, we have no room for 13 months worth of food, water or the enormous pile of shit that 16,000 animals would generate in that amount of time. In fact, there isn't room for Noah and his shipmates either. Anyway, according to Genesis 6:22, "Thus did Noah; according to all that God commanded him, so did he."

Stand just like this for over a year? No problem, I am the Zen master of standing. I could,...Hey! Is that a fucking Velociraptor?

"And the lord said unto Noah, Come thou and all thy house into the ark; for thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation." Genesis 7:2 "Over every clean beast thou shall take to thee by sevens, the male and his female:and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female."  This new bit about the seven pairs refers presumably to the distinction between animals suitable for consumption and sacrifice and those that are not. It predates Mosaic law considerably and might be an indication of an all knowing God who anticipates Moses and the New testament or further proof of the pagan origins of the Christian cult. People have been making sacrifice of crops, animals and all manner of things including other people for  thousands of years before any of the events in the bible, including the "creation" were said to have occurred.

  And to whom or what were these offerings made? Well , to everything from the sun, the moon, and the stars to a pantheon of mostly forgotten gods. As point of interest, many of these gods were born of a virgin on or around the winter solstice, died and returned to life. So, how many gods have come and gone since the dawn of man? The exact answer can never be known, but my first guess would be a shit-ton.



 Tediously forward we trudge and arrive at Genesis 7:3 -7:4, which spews forth, "Of fowls also of the air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive upon the face of all the earth.  For yet seven days, and I will cause it to rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and every living substance that I have made I will destroy from off the face of the earth."

"For yet seven days"  is thought to mean that God grants the people of earth an additional week to repent but by all accounts they chose to piss it away and some even spend it ridiculing Noah for building a giant ship in the desert.

In Bill Cosby's version of the story he imagines how Noah's next door neighbor might react...

Neighbor: Hey! You up there!

Noah: What do you want?

Neighbor: What is this?

Noah: It's an ark.

Neighbor: Aha, you wanna get it out of my driveway? I gotta get to work!

Genesis 7:5 -7:11 "And Noah did according unto all that the Lord commanded him. And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood waters was upon the earth. And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons' wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters of the flood. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of everything that creepeth upon the earth. There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah. And it came to pass after seven days, that the waters of the flood were upon the earth. In the six hundreth year of noah's life , in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." 

Lord knows what "the fountains of the great deep" are.  Apparently, rather than the nearly moon-sized, fiery ball of iron that we now know is in the center of the earth surrounded by roiling mass of liquid iron and nickel alloy , churning at a blistering 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit, these fine folks thought the antediluvian world had water inside. It makes sense when you consider that the commonly held geographical and cosmological beliefs of most people at the time was that the earth was a flat disk, supported by either giant pillars, or on the back of a giant turtle with a solid dome sky fixed over it to keep out the waters of outer space while giving God something to sit on when he wanted to look down upon us.

Ugh. 

Genesis 7:12-7:16  "And the rain was upon the earth forty days and forty nights. In the selfsame day entered Noah, and Ham, and Shem, and Japeth," the movie star, the professor and Mary- sorry. "the sons of Noah, and Noah's wife, and the three wives of his sons with them, into the ark; They, and every beast after his kind, and all the cattle after their kind, and every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earthafter his kind, and every fowl after his kind, every bird of every sort. And they went in unto Noah into the ark, two and two of all flesh, wherein is the breath of life. And they went in, went in male and female of all flesh, as God had commanded him: and the Lord shut him in." 

This last part, "and the Lord shut him in" is believed to mean that God closed and sealed the door behind Noah, thus safely securing him, his family and all the representative animals of the world against the raging storm that would shortly ensue. Safe, secure and packed impossibly worse than sardines with bed bugs, lice, mosquitos, tarantulas, scorpians, venemous snakes, lions tigers and bears, and oh my, T-rexes and velociraptors. All squeezed for thirteen months into a confined space with no lights, heat or air conditioning and just a single 18" x 18" window for ventilation. Oh, and also as a means to remove the shit, piss and other waste materials produced by 16,000 animals. Comfy. I think even the normally ambivalent honey badgers would be forced to "give a fuck" about this arrangement.

Finally we reach the end of page four. Page four?  Good Lord, it seems like it should be page one thousand. Did I really commit to thirteen pages? I am beginning to feel like what I imagine Morgan Spurlock felt when he committed to eating only Mc Donalds food for a 30 days in his documentary, "Super Size Me." Like I have bitten off more craziness than I can chew. At any rate, page four concludes with Genesis 7:17-19, and this nonsense,  "And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered."

"Glub, glub, glub!"

Right. For this to actually happen, you would need five times the amount of water currently found on the Earth. It would merely take 4.4 billion cubic kilometers of the stuff to cover Mt. Everest. Where did that water come from? Where did it go? Do you know what that much pressure would do to the Earth's mantle? Do you know what that pressure would do to any improbable aquatic survivors in the oceans? 

I am through with this nonsense for now. I mean, if you still believe this story, you might want to consider killing yourself for the good of all mankind, or at least asking yourself some of the questions posed by Mark Isaak found here.

Thanks for doing the heavy lifting Mark, I need a break. And a bourbon. For now, and as always, May Zeus preserve you!