For years I’ve enjoyed poking holes in Christian mythology. It’s just so easy. As a reasonably bright teen I early recognized the idiocies and began asking questions. By young adulthood I realized there were no logical answers and that my questions were not appreciated. So I walked away. But I still enjoy poking the bear.
As to Noah, well that story has more holes than a donut shop. I was reading recently and came across the same argument twice and I’m not sure this particular one holds water, so to speak. So I’m asking the posters at AR to help me out on this one. I’d hate to use an argument that can be rebutted.
So according to Genesis the world’s highest mountain was under 15 cubits of water. So Everest at 29,029 ft plus 22 ft is 29,051 ft. Climbers attempting to get this high always carry oxygen because it is damn near impossible to breathe way up there. So the argument I heard was how did Noah and the animals breathe if they were cruising some 29,000 feet above the former sea level? My thought is that as the water rises (not even asking where it all came from) it would lift the atmosphere with it. No matter where it stopped, it would still have the same amount of air over it, so it would be “sea level” with air pressure probably about the same as it currently is. I say about because if the oceans were suddenly nearly six miles higher, the surface area of the planet would be larger and the atmosphere would be spread a little thinner, but still probably not enough to cause a great change in pressure.
The argument also asked how the ark inhabitants survived the severe cold (-40˚ F at the top of Mt. Everest). I’m making the assumption that high altitude cold has something to do with the thin atmosphere so the answer to the first argument would cover this.
I have a third question about salinity. One would probably need to increase the amount of water in the oceans by 3 times (rough mental estimate) to have enough water to cover the entire world nearly six miles deep. Since this came from rain it is fresh water. So the salinity of the oceans would be reduced by about 67%. Are salt water fish able to survive in that level of salinity? Likewise, there would be no fresh water. Could fresh water fish survive? And when the water went away (where?) all the formerly fresh lakes (Lake Tahoe, Great Lakes, Lake Titicaca) and aquifers would be at least 33% as salty as the oceans. Am I off here?