Like most sensible people, one of the reasons you scoff at the tale of Noah’s Ark and the Flood is because of the impossibility of plants’ surviving a global deluge. Here’s your opportunity to learn what a fool you’ve been.
This information comes to us from Answers in Genesis (AIG), one of the major sources of young-earth creationist wisdom. AIG is the online creationist ministry of Ken Ham (ol’ Hambo), the Australian entrepreneur who has become the ayatollah of Appalachia.
Their article is How Did Plants Survive the Flood? It’s a long article, so we can only hit the highlights. Here we go, with bold font added by us and their links and scripture references omitted:
Many critics of the Genesis account of history scoff at the idea of plants and seeds lasting for a year in fresh and salt water, therefore discounting the biblical account of the Flood, even though simple and elegant explanations abound. This article will serve as a synopsis of several of those. So really the heart of the matter becomes whether or not one is willing to accept the scriptural account of the Flood and these plausible or even probable explanations for the difficulties they encounter.
That describes the problem. The AIG creation scientists have “simple and elegant explanations,” but it all depends on whether you’re willing go along with them. They continue:
For instance, when God created vegetation, He created it perfect, so it would have been beautiful, vibrant with color, sturdy and strong, with the possibility of built-in survival mechanisms to withstand harsh conditions. … But this simple explanation is usually not enough for skeptics, since they draw from false presuppositions. Even though it is only the Holy Spirit who can remove their blinders so they see the truth, it is still our duty as Christians to give them a reasonable explanation to this question.
They’re trying to help you, dear reader, so please pay attention as we read on:
First, we know God’s Word is true and there was a global Flood. Knowing the Flood happened, and in light of the fact that we have plants today, the important question is: in what ways did the plants and seeds survive the Flood? The logical argument for the fact that plants survived the Flood is actually quite simple.
The Bible states there was a worldwide Flood.
We see plants today.
Therefore plants survived the Flood.
What could be more clear? If you don’t see the truth now, you are indeed a fool! AIG’s syllogism is worthy of Captain Queeg:
Ahh, but the strawberries that’s… that’s where I had them. They laughed at me and made jokes but I proved beyond the shadow of a doubt and with geometric logic, that a duplicate key to the wardroom icebox did exist!
AIG continues, and shows that scripture is on their side:
According to the Flood timeline, it is worth noting that the earth was not completely covered for the entire Flood year. The longest possible amount of time that seeds/plants would have been in or under water, without any contact with land, is 278 days (about nine months and one week).
So there! Don’t you feel silly now? Here’s more:
Something else to be addressed is the ocean’s salinity. … Skeptics assume that it has taken millions and billions of years for the ocean to become this salty based on current rates. They presume the current salinity to be about the same as at the time of the Flood, since it happened around 4,400 years ago. But this is an unfounded assumption … .
[…]
There is more than one feasible scenario for the salinity of the ocean, but what follows is the most likely. First, it is possible that the water had salinity similar to that of freshwater before the Flood.
Yeah! How do you know how salty the ocean used to be? Were you there?
There’s much more to this AIG article, and you’ll have to read it all for yourself. We’ll give you only one more argument:
Another way plants would have survived is that they were taken onto the Ark as food for Noah, his family, and the animals. … After leaving the Ark any seeds the animals ingested during their final days on the Ark could have passed through and then left on the ground in the animals’ excrement.
There you go — excrement! You never thought of that, did you? Admit it, dear reader. Until this moment, you’ve spent your life in ignorance! This final excerpt is the last sentence of the article:
However, the real question becomes: how can any skeptics’ claims (man’s ideas) survive the great flood of logic from God’s Word and common sense? They can’t!
Go forth now, and scoff no more!
Copyright © 2012. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
Sure. I posed a question on my favorite forum asking if any creationist org had ever proven an Olive tree/seedling could survive months of submersion in salt water. It was a mature Olive branch the dove brought back to the ark, ruling out it being from a freshly sprouted plant.
For this I was branded a blasphemer and told I would be at risk of physical harm if I asked that same question in some churches.
“There you go — excrement! You never thought of that, did you?”
Actually, I did, though perhaps not in the intended way.
The need for AiG to sidestep the Lord having the ultimate trump card seems to border on neurosis at times. Regardless of what anyone feels the details of the tale are, a divine power doesn’t need mortals making excuses about how plants survived anything. Obviously they simply did. But staying with that theme doesn’t generate profit as well as second guessing an alleged deity.
Funny!
But you can’t fool me…you copied that from the Onion site…
Didn’t ya…
I thought that hard-core young-earth creationists argued that plants were not life forms – that they were not even alive. They say this because before “The Fall”, only herbivory existed, but no death existed either. Thus, plants aren’t life forms.
So, if plants aren’t even alive, the problem of them surviving the flood is a moot point.
Gotta love the jibberish that poses as logic in creationist brains.
Really?
We’ve got stacks of science books about how evolution works.
We see plants and animals today.
Therefore plants and animals evolved.
Ta Da!
Somewhat related: There is an Ansers In Genesis Conference [sic] coming soon in my area. I’ve never been a big fan of heckling, but there is a certain temptation to go and ask some Frank J style questions.
Hey, maybe I could get Expelled?
AIG article includes, among many other monstrosities, this particular gem:
My office is about 1/4 mile from Westminster Abbey. I suspect the whirring sound I can hear is poor old Chuck spinning in his grave…
One question to ask about the flood, is: If the flood happened 4,400 years ago, or around 2,400 BCE, then why do records and artifacts exist of diverse civilizations around the world which existed before and after this period without any noted interruption? If only Noah and his family survived, who were the people that continued these pre-flood civilizations with the same languages, cultures, architecture, etc.?
The records/artifacts we have of agriculture during the period in question do not indicate a worldwide interruption in farming patterns, or the sudden appearance of new crops in new areas. Agriculture appears to have progressed from wilder to more cultivated forms, and does not appear to have descended from original super-plants, “beautiful, vibrant with color, sturdy and strong”.
By coming up with clearly absurd “evidence” for how the entire planet’s flora could survive a lengthy inundation, the AiG makes their story harder to believe, not easier.
@Ed: Yes. The simpler explanation is that plants did not need to survive The Flood, because there wasn’t any.
Another possibility is that Noah set up a veggie garden on the Ark’s poop deck, there being a more than ample supply of soil enrichment material handy during the voyage that Noah & the boys could throw on the veggies to keep ’em growing. But since all the animals survived, including Dino, Fred’s pet, everyone, Noah, his kin, and all the animals, must all have been vegans.
Dean says: “Regardless of what anyone feels the details of the tale are, a divine power doesn’t need mortals making excuses about how plants survived anything.”
That’s true for animals too, yet they needed the Ark to survive. It’s a bit inconsistent to say that the plants were miraculously preserved, but the animals needed a rickety boat.
It’s scary that anyone believes this insanity. On a related topic with only two of each animal how did Noah & family rebuild the food chains we see today?
Ed,
top 10 creationist answers to why human artifacts from before and
after 2400 BC are seen in the rock record;
10. The Tennesee legislature passed a law saying it was controversial
9.Carbon dating doesn’t work because charcoal and barbq are modern inventions
8.Anthropologists are atheist pits of hell type guys
7. Its a conspiracy to hide The Truth by the science priesthood
6. Casey had pancakes for breakfast and thought it sounded reasonable
for intelligent design creationism
5. Its a miracle
4. Ditto #5 Kadoopleblinglehoffman
3.The otters accidentally spilled the silverware when Noah let them go for a swim
2.Ken Ham says they are not human artifacts because the Bible says it couldn’t have happened.
And the #1 reason there are human artifacts above and below 2400 BC in the rock record.
Answers in Genesis science department( their pet cocker spaniel) would say say if it could speak “if those are human artifacts, why are there still monkeys”?
There fixed.
will says: “top 10 creationist answers to why human artifacts from before and
after 2400 BC are seen in the rock record”
What about: Were you there?
Maybe Noah instructed his animals to eat every possible plant before entering the Ark, then ordered them not to defecate for a year in order to eject the seeds after the flood, and so repopulate the hearth with the old plants! Incidentally, this may solve lot of problems about the cleaning of the ark from the animals’… well, you know.
Richard, shall we call that the Divine Constipation Theory?
Excellent! We could also be appointed Fellow Discoveroids!
Let’s not be too hasty. Personally, I lack the necessary qualities of mendaciousness and pandering.
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip
How A-I-G just made stuff up
and saved plants from The Great Big Drip
The ship was 300 cubits long
50 wide and 30 high
it will have a finished roof
and an entrance on the side, an entrance on the side.
The plants they could not make to trip
In Flood they would be lost
If not for intestines to see them through
No salad to be tossed, no salad to be tossed.
The ark set down on Ararat after floating for a while
With Animals
and fodder too,
with Noah’s sons and their wives,
The Dinosaurs
But they forgot the Unicorns,
That’s Answers in Genesis style!
Why try and explain it at all? Why not just say that God kept them all alive with magic? Once you’ve accepted the premise of the Bible you should be willing to accept any amount of divine magic. Trying to come up with physics-defying explanations just underscores the absurdity of the whole situation, and risks getting devout but oblivious believers to start to think. Ken Ham does Christianity a vast disservice by trying to make Genesis sound logical and all science-y. Just call it magic and be done.
TA said:
And if things really get out of hand, I’m offering right now to post bail.
If only creationists put as much effort into honest research as they put into needlessly complicated obfuscation. Look at the contorted chain of unlikely events Ham has to go through to get to his desired, preordained answer — rather than just follow the path where the evidence leads. It’s like getting from New York to Jersey by way of Sydney, Australia. The truth is deceptively simpler, and so much easier. He must climb up to his third story window and down the stairs to get to his front door every day.
Neon says: “He [Ham] must climb up to his third story window and down the stairs to get to his front door every day.”
Keep in mind that Ham’s mentor, Moses, was able to wander around in the desert for 40 years before finding so much as a Seven-Eleven store to stop in and get a lemon Slurpee.
I love the hilarity here today. Must be inspiration from the silliness of AIG’s article.
For some serious analysis, I did a quick text search on the article. The word “could” appears 19 times, sometimes up to four times in a paragraph.
Charles Deetz says: “I love the hilarity here today.”
Hilarity? I, for one, think their excrement theory has great potential.
The AiG article states:
Uh, if the Bible is “God’s Word”, then it’s the antithesis of common sense. Just sayin’.
Gary>”And if things really get out of hand, I’m offering right now to post bail.”
I actually have my choice of three conferences and speakers. Terry Mortenson, John Morris, or Eric Hovind. Or maybe I’ll just read Jason Rosenhouses book instead.
Poolio observes:
Good point. AIG here sound like a suspect who thinks the more alibis he can generate, the greater his seeming innocent. “No, officer, I couldn’t have killed Smith at noon! I have one witness to prove I was in Hong Kong at 11:50, and another witness to prove I was in Paris at 12:03! And I never saw Smith in my life, who anyway was my best friend and like a brother to me!”
Dear Sensuous, I like you dislike old hambo. I am not a scientist, and I do believe in the Person Jesus Christ. Just not the same way as 99% of Christians do. Now with that out of the way.
I read your posts on why not to debate with hambo and the Gish gallop and the 4 cube guy. When debating them one takes a risk as bystanders will think that both are fools, idiots, Raca = empty headed. (Raca is a word from the Bible)
I thought of asking Rambo..hambo questions on his Noah ark and the flood, but I see he has already given the answer….”There are many things we do not know, but that does not mean that they are not true..”Ken Ham.
So my questions will be met with….”we don’t know..We don’t know…we don’t know..”
Perhaps we could challenge him on his Ark project?
He must load 7 of each kind (species) of chickens, birds, goats, (domestic farm animals) plus sufficient food (fodder grass etc) to feed these domestic animals for 370 days. (His time line)
He can have a live video link so that the whole world can monitor the survival feeding, cleaning watering of these animals.
I want to ask him some interesting questions, but it should be made public so that many people can see how many “we don’t know” answers I as a non scientist can elect from Ken Ham.
Up for the Idea to challenge old kennie boy?
regards
A creationist, who seemed very knowledgable about creationist thought, told me there is an area in Peru which was not inundated in the flood, and retains much of the pre-flood characteristics of the earth. People who live there do not know sickness, and live unusually long lives. The soil is very fertile and routinely grows giant super nutritious vegetables. Does anyone know anything about this story?
@Jim Thomerson
Maybe a garbled version of James Hilton’s novel, “Lost Horizon”?
@Ceteris Paribus:
Deadpan comic Steven Wright (remember him?) used to tell a joke about his supposed Cesarean birth: “[You] can’t really tell — although whenever I leave a house I go out through the window.” Perhaps this is the genesis of Ham’s circuitous approach to problem solving? I just hope he doesn’t have a day job as an air traffic controller or travel agent, or driving a taxi.
“He must load 7 of each kind (species) of chickens, birds, goats, (domestic farm animals) plus sufficient food (fodder grass etc) to feed these domestic animals for 370 days”
I think it might be enough to persuade him to load up two each of three species of elephant first, plus food. See how much room there is, I believe that the giraffe, being split-toed and ruminant and therefore clean, should be fourteen in number. Already getting a bit crowded, methinks. So why not the bears next (I think about 35 species, so that’s 70 individuals). That should separate the herbivores from the carnivores.
Then he can take stock, as it were, and see where the dinosaurs (presumably animatronic) are going to fit in.
Jim Thomerson, when I was a creationist, I heard that story as well, and that’s all that it is – a story. The people of the Andes do tend to live longer than their neighbours, but not inexplicably long. The land’s great for growing potatoes and, well, potatoes. It’s a bit like The Bermuda Triangle – each person who believes in it would draw the outline of the area differently on a map, and each one of them would be wrong, in some way.