Ark, Ark, Ark

I have just read about Ken Ham’s Ark, constructed in Kentucky following Biblical standards, and am totally, jaw-dropping flabbergasted, amazed and bewildered.  In a time when information is so readily available how can people possibly spend so many resources pursuing such fictions?  But, I am getting ahead of myself, so I shall back up.

Do you believe in and worship a God?  What are the attributes of your God?

If you believe in the Judeo-Christian God, the God of the Old and New Testament, then I suppose there is a chance that you still believe the story of Noah’s Ark.  That chance could only be based on a lack of information and reflection.  To build a vessel in the Bronze Age capable of housing two of every kind of animal on the planet is a preposterous and impossible task.  There are 7.7 million types of animals on our planet, and science guesses we have identified about one-half of all the life forms here.  If we eliminate all the animals that live in water and all the bugs, then we are down to a mere 2 million animals.  The very most conservative estimates the types of animals and birds is 60,000.  There is no way to build a wooden vessel capable of housing, much less feeding two pair of that many life forms.  Ken Ham claims he built it to house 1,300 pairs of life forms.  Well, OK, but that is a drop in the 2 million life forms bucket.  If it were true that Noah took 1,300 pairs of life forms into a closed environment we now know two things Noah didn’t know.  First, the only way it could possibly be true is to argue for evolution postulating that somehow those 2600 creatures evolved rapidly into the 2 million we know today.  Sadly, Ark believers “believe” the scientific fact of evolution is false, so that cannot explain it.  On the other hand, if it were true and these became the only existent creatures on the planet, then having a gene pool of two specimens damns the life form to become extinct very shortly, not to mention the incest that would have to occur for reproduction.  Noah’s Ark is a fiction.  A fiction that depends on ignoring the knowledge we have accumulated in the past 4,000 years. 

But what is most amazing to me is that the point of the entire Noah story is lost on Ham.  The story is about the wrath of God.  God got so mad at humans that he drowned every single living thing.  Millions of people.  All kinds of animals.  It was genocide and extinction across a life-form spectrum we cannot imagine.  It was a temper-tantrum of universal proportions.  But because the ancient writers could not yet fathom evolution, there had to be a way to tell the story of a mean, wrathful God willing to wipe everything out and start over while explaining the diversity of life even those writers observed.  Hence the Ark.  Hence Noah.  Hence the sideline story of how God in his wrath saved himself the trouble of re-creating all the animals he had already created.  The problem, of course, for humans today is that we know the fiction is impossible, and if true, reveals an attribute of a God more worthy of prosecution than worship unless the worship is based on fear.

And the great flood was not a stand-alone event.  We have Sodom and Gomorrah, entire cities destroyed because they did not follow the rules as prescribed 3,000 years before Jesus.  Once again, a wrathful, mean God shows his true colors.  We have the banishment of Adam and Eve from the garden, not only punishment for Adam and Eve for disobeying this wrathful, mean God, but the punishment continues to this day.  Would a loving and forgiving God carry a grudge for what would have to be hundreds of thousands of years?   

The God of the Old Testament is not a God I could worship.  He demands unchallenged control of human life and is willing to execute any number of people if we do not comply.  And the rules he set up to follow are absurd:  stoning to death of humans who are not virgins on their wedding night, children who disobey parents, prostitutes, homosexuals – in fact, anyone who does not toe the line.  If those are attributes you are willing to worship, then I lament the fact that your faith is founded on such a negative supernatural being.  Superman becomes a better role model than God.

Some say that the New Testament in many ways replaces all the rules of the Old Testament via the sacrifice of Jesus.  OK.  The basic premise haunts me.  Prior to Jesus animals were sacrificed to God.  In the New Testament, not only is there human sacrifice, the human to be sacrificed is God’s son.  Really?  In terms of moral behavior has God moved to higher ground in the New Testament moving from animal sacrifice to human sacrifice?

Worse in my mind is the implication that the God of the New Testament is not very bright.  Here is a God that created everything.  He did it in 6 days.  He mapped out all those life forms he later saved on the Ark.  He was brilliant.  He was omnipotent.  But he gets really stupid in the New Testament because he cannot figure out a way to forgive humans for their sins except by the torturous death of his only son.  Amazing.  He would have a better image had we stuck with animal sacrifice.  Is the sacrifice of our children a behavior we should emulate?  Should I love my neighbor so much I am willing to kill my son?  Such a godly requirement is not one I can follow.  Why didn’t he send Jesus to perform miracles and simply announce that the punishments administered to Adam and Eve are now over for anyone who worships God?  I suspect the number of believers would be huge if believers did not have to toil and there was no pain in child birth for those who believe.  Why didn’t he simply allow Jesus to live forever on earth preaching love and forgiveness?  Why all this continued death and destruction in the name of sacrifice, anger and jealousy?  Worse, these deeds do not align with the words:  Love thy neighbor, unless of course, he does not do what God told him to do.  Even God approves a death penalty for those who disobey him, and the ultimate death penalty is an eternity in hell.

So, if you are of the Judeo-Christian heritage you worship a God who is wrathful, angry, willing to kill humans and entire species if we do not behave.  You worship a God that could not see a way around sacrificing his own son to implement forgiveness.  You worship a God who holds a grudge for a very long time.  You worship a God whose basic tenets in many cases go against the scientific rules of reality; rules that he theoretically created and implemented.  You worship a God who says one thing and does another.  You worship a God that supports slavery and no rights for women.  You appear to worship an all-powerful, supernatural being who has consistently demonstrated all the behaviors we abhor most in our fellow man. 

Or, it is all just a great story, a marvelous fiction written to promote certain beliefs and behaviors.  In that case the Ark is no more real than Paul Bunyan and his big blue ox, Tinker Bell and Never-Never Land, or even Oz.  In fact, if you heard that someone worshipped Tinker Bell and spent millions of dollars in the lab to create fairy dust so that we could all fly and never grow up, I suspect you would be totally, jaw-dropping flabbergasted, amazed and bewildered. 

And even though it is so sad, you would laugh, and your laughter would sound like, “Ark, ark, ark.”