Edit: I realize most of you won't read the whole thing, but atleast read this except.
http://www.atheists.org/evolution/morrisdebate.html
Copyright © 2006 American Atheists, Inc. All rights reserved.
Wolfsie: Let's talk about the big animals. We've got to take a
break here ...I want to know what was on this boat, how many animals were on the boat, and let's get into the big picture here, that's people understand...We'll be right back.
[commercial]
Wolfsie: Back on AM Indiana, talking about Noah's Ark. Frank, let me ask you very specifically, let's get from the very tiny things to the big things. What about the story, the size of the ark? And what Noah would have had to put on the ark? What troubles you? And then Professor Morris can respond.
Zindler: Not only is there the problem of how do you get all of the species of land animals into the ark, the primitive people who created the flood myth in the first place, in the fourth millennium B.C. or whenever, they didn't realize that plants were living things, and they didn't realize the implications of Noah not taking fishes and marine organisms into the ark. If we limit ourselves to just the water that is known on the planet, and the volume of sedimentary strata that we know of, and if as the creationists claim, all these sedimentary strata were deposited during that one year, the ocean at that time would have been actually two parts water to one part mud! [29] Now, if that were the case, with a world-destroying flood, how would the whales have stayed alive? They could not have been swimming... through, straining out plankton and so on, to feed. Delicate corals die if there is just the tiniest bit of silt in the water, or change in water temperature, and so forth. So Noah would have to have had enormous numbers of aquaria in the ark to keep the whales going, to keep the marine fishes from dying because of the dilution of the salt water with fresh water, to keep the fresh water organisms alive because of the salt coming in, and all these noxious things that the volcanos are throwing out... Incidentally, if all the volcanic lava beds that we see interspersed between these sedimentary rocks were laid down during one year, the amount of heat released from that lava would have heated the water of the ocean to several thousand degrees centigrade! And so Noah's ark would have had to have been air-conditioned! [30]
Wolfsie: And how many animals on the boat? How many species?
Zindler: There are at least a million species of organisms known, and the creationists say, well we wouldn't have to have all the species. We would have maybe just a general representative of them. But even so, with the need for the aquaria, a boat simply the size of an ocean liner would be inadequate. [31]
Wolfsie: Okay...
Morris: Frank, you are critiquing the biblical account here. You're saying that Noah...[three-second flaw in videotape of debate] Here's the Bible, [holds up a Bible] Now...
Zindler: A very ignorant book, by the way...
Morris: Oh my!
Zindler: Very unscientific...
Morris: You are critiquing this account...Will you tell me where it says Noah had to take the fish on board?
Zindler: I'm saying it was an error because they didn't know he had to take the fish on board...
Morris: What you're saying is the biblical account is wrong.
Zindler: Yes!
Morris: Because there's not room on board for all the fish and whales and...
Zindler: No-no-no! It was wrong because they didn't know...
Morris: Nowhere is it claimed that they had to be on board.
Zindler: That's why it's wrong...You see, for it to be a plausible argument, they would have had to say, "and he had to take the fish on board, and the corals on board..."
Morris: See what this is? Let me show you what this is. This is Atheistic logic here...
Wolfsie: Well he doesn't deny that!
Morris: No, he doesn't...He's Madalyn Murray's right-hand man!
Zindler: I was showing that the Bible is pre-scientific, you see...
Morris: An Atheist assumes a Very arrogant position, in my mind, that there is no god. Now, every philosopher knows that there is no such thing as an absolute negative. [32] He's saying there is no god...
Zindler: You have to prove there is one; I don't have to disprove it
Morris: Okay, but you're making...
Zindler: The onus of proof is on you who allege... [33]
Morris: But to say that there is no god...that's illogical!
Zindler: On the contrary! It is extraordinarily illogical to say there is a god who couldn't tell the people who wrote the Bible that they had to take fishes and corals in the ark!
Morris: Now your logic is going the same direction...You're saying that I know, for a fact, that no whales could have survived outside the ark...
Zindler: I would hope you would know that!
Morris: Well, you're making the statement that you know this knowledge, that no whales could have survived outside the ark—Now, I think that's an illogical statement. The flood is not as you characterize it. Let me tell you some things about water...
Zindler: It destroyed the world, supposedly...
Morris: You betcha! By the billions fish, clams, whales, died in the flood, or maybe not billions of whales, by the billions...
Zindler: That's another thing. There are too many fossils for one world! If you were to...
Wolfsie: Hey, Frank, now hold it! You know...
Zindler: You can't have all the known fossils living at one time!
Wolfsie: ...I was just about to understand something, and you're changing on me! Now wait a second...
Zindler: You see, you can't have all the known fossils living at one time... [34]
Wolfsie: I was just on the verge of getting something here... [To Morris] You're claiming that the fish didn't have to go on the ark because the fish just would have survived, because they live in water anyway...
Morris: The Bible is very explicit about what goes on the ark. It says that—it says the land animals. It says all those in whose nostrils is the breath of life, of everything that lives on the dry land. So many animals... that's excluding whales...
Zindler: That's right! [35]
Morris: ...although they breathe air, but they don't live on land. It talks about cattle and domesticated animals. It talks about creeping things, the small animals...and the beasts of the field, which are the large animals. And it says very explicitly that those had to be on board the ark...and the birds. Now, he says millions of species. If you add up that number of species, you know, the maximum number even that anyone would even propose would be on board the ark would be, I mean the outside maximum, the worst-case scenario, we're talking maybe fifty thousand animals... [36] And the ark is certainly big enough to carry that number of animals for the length of time that they had to be...
Zindler: Okay, you'd think that there...
Morris: Now what he's saying is—he's adding to the story. He's saying that the story makes no sense unless you put the fish onboard. I think that's an illogical addition to it...
Zindler: You've apparently never raised tropical fish, John....you would know how difficult it is to keep fish alive!
Morris: Let me tell you something about water. There are many, many studies where waters of different temperature, of different salinities, of different chemistries, segregate. And during the flood there would have been zones of fresh water, of salt water... there is... again, billions of sea creatures died in Noah's flood. But all the Bible, the biblical account, requires is that two of each of these created kinds would have survived somewhere in a pocket...
Zindler: Somewhere close enough together that they could get back together after the flood! And that stratification would have been impossible, John, because of all the volcanic activity you talk about going on. [37] This would be churning stuff up all the time [hubub]...
Wolfsie: Were there dinosaurs on the ark? Were there dinosaurs on this ark?
Morris: The flood account does not predict...
Wolfsie: Oh! I've got to take a break... What I'm trying to establish...
Zindler: Of course there would have been dinosaurs on the ark!
Wolfsie: I want to understand, because I want to talk about how Noah's flood occurred... and then I think a fair question is, if there were dinosaurs on this ark, how is that in keeping with how we know that man and dinosaurs didn't exist at the same time. And if there weren't dinosaurs, where did they come from, since all the species were wiped out? That seems like a fair question. I'll try to remember how I asked that in just a moment, stay tuned...
Edit: agnostic, atheist, christian, whatever. The link I posted is a very good read and entertaining no matter what you are. I highly reccomend sitting down with a nice cup of coffe and having a nice read.