oh please wrote:
I would ask you to use a bit of logic. How big would a boat have to be to hold a pair of every animal in the world? How would a pair of every animal have been acquired in the middle east? After this flood, how did every pair disperse to the rest of the world and recreate their respective populations.
I'm dumbfounded that someone can say with a straight face that such things make sense. Of course they use the "you have to have faith" catch phrase, and once that's been bandied about, you can no longer utilize logic with said person.
Let's address each of these very interesting questions in order. First, a boat would have to be very big to hold a pair of every animal in the world. By very big I mean something like 135x22.5x13.5 meters, the dimensions mentioned in the Bible. These dimensions were converted to meters using the standard conversion factor of 18 inches/1 cubit, though many scholars argue that larger sized cubits were often used.
If all of the animals existed on the same continent, it would not be impossible to bring them all to the middle east before the flood. Christian scholars believe that the splitting of the continents occurred after the tower of Babylon was built, or chronologically after the flood described in the Bible. This also answers the question of how the animals dispersed.
Obviously, some faith is required to believe that God caused the animals to come to the ark and then flood the earth. It's pretty stupid to try to justify any religion without considering faith. However, a little research combined with some "logic" will at least make the story plausible, and perhaps make you slightly less "dumbfounded."