Ever stopped to think that the word 'world' might not mean what modern people mean by it? I mean, do you think that the East Romans (Byzantines) had a galactic empire a la Star Wars simply because they called their Empire the Oekumene (Universe)?
Learn to approach the texts more sensibly and you might get more sensible answers. Of course, if all you want to do is ridicule, sticking with the most ridiculous, literalist view you can find probably serves your cause, but don't try and pretend that your criticism generalises in any way to the faith at large.
James
of course, such an interpretation would completely discount the grand Canyon as evidence for YEC, thus meaning the Earth must be billions of years old, yes?
Since Noah's birdy (a dove wasn't it?) flew off and then returned with a leaf from an olive vine I'm led to believe that God fibbed about the proportions of the flood or olives have good scuba gear.
The people who wrote the Bible didn't see plants as alive. This explains the problem quite nicely.
I've always assumed that Noah had plant life aboard the Ark. To me, it's not rocket science...Noah had to eat. I would wager that plant life was part of his diet.
And he took oak trees and poison ivy as well? To eat? This theory would mean that we'd only have edible plants around today - clearly not the case.
I don't think it unfeasible that the entire world was flooded. I have no trouble believing this on faith. And if it wasn't...that fact wouldn't really matter much in the long run.
If it's feasible, then where did all the water come from? And where did it go? Such knowledge would be of extreme importance for countries in Africa where drought has ravaged the land.
To answer the salt water question, and this is also a guess. Since it rained, and rain is always fresh water, not salt water, wouldn't there be more fresh water on earth than salt water during the flood. And when the water receeded, the fresh water which was at a higher altitude than the salt water, would have settled into the valleys and formed lake beds, to once again form fresh water lakes, or at the least, very low salt content lakes. Not to mention, could there have been a difference in the ocean temperature than the rain temperature. If the rain was warmer than the ocean, wouldn't the warm fresh water rain stay higher than the cold salt water which would prevent the two from fully mixing.
The salt content in the oceans would have spread out throughout the water volume.
The Holy Bible tells us that mankind will never be eliminated by another great flood....so no, there would be no reason to blame God...
What if it was a worldwide drought? It's easy to blame things like this on God, but that doesn't make it true.
And that means that these things are perfectly capable of happening without divine intervention.
Actually, the Holy Bible states that the entire earth's surface was covered in water...same as modern science is now also confirming...and yes...all at the hand of the creator God as revealed to us within the pages of the Holy Bible...
Show me one legitimate scientific source that shows scientific evidence that the entire surface of the Earth was covered with water.
Seems that the Biblical creation accounts have it right....thousands of years before modern science caught up to it...coincidence?....not hardly...
The Biblical creation accounts do not coincide with scientific accounts. The Bible did not get it right.
Who ever siad that it did...?
If the Biblical account is to be accepted, the water level had to be higher than Ararat in order for the ark to be deposited there.
Not only is it possible...but it was...this is part of planetary formation...
Water formation came from volcanic gases. it never covered the Earth entirely.
Isn't the more important question 'what does this story teach us?' It's a story of faith and restoration, of God's might and God's mercy.
Another example of literalism killing the spirit of the scripture.
It may not be one of the more comfortable characteristics of God found in the Bible, but 'them were different times' when this was written.
In other words it teaches that God is very willing to kill nearly all life on the planet.
Given the impossibilities in the story, there's no reason to see it as anything other than fiction. Anyone can make up a story to portray God as having whatever qualities they want. In other words, it teaches us what someone ages ago thought God was like. It tells us nothing about God himself.