There are several good treatments of this subject at other websites, for example, see this from the National Center for Science Education (NCSE): The Impossible Voyage of Noah’s Ark, and also this from TalkOrigins: Problems with a Global Flood. But here we’ll give you our own humble list. Due to the subject matter, it won’t be remarkably original:

Number 10: Where’s the Ark? Surely, the survivors of such an expedition would have remembered the location of the Ark. It’s hard to believe they wouldn’t have built a monument or something — perhaps not as elaborate as one of the Pyramids, or even Stonehenge, but surely they would have done something to mark the resting place of the vessel that preserved them and all life on Earth. But we’re expected to believe that they just walked away and let the thing fade into oblivion.

Number 9: Why has Noah been forgotten? Except for those cultures that have been exposed to the tale of the Ark as found in the Old Testament, no other people on Earth remember the name of Noah — the father of us all. It is absurd in the greatest degree to think that nations which routinely preserve the names of their great kings, warriors, and heroes, have somehow forgotten about Noah, to the point where they don’t even remember his name or the fact that he once existed. [See also: Other Names for Noah?]

Number 8: Who was Noah’s wife? Somehow, the mother of all mankind remains unnamed in Genesis. Not only that, but the wives of Noah’s sons are also unnamed. Again, this is an absurdity. There are non-scriptural texts that provide names for such people, but they are all in disagreement as to what those names were. See Wives aboard Noah’s Ark.

Number 7: Conditions aboard the Ark were unsurvivable. We have previously estimated that they were at least ten times worse than the accommodations aboard a slave ship. See How Horrible Was Life Aboard Noah’s Ark? For our comparison of Noah’s waste removal problems with the similar task faced by Hercules in cleaning the Augean stables, see Waste Disposal on Noah’s Ark.

Number 6. Biogeography is all wrong. If every species of animal on Earth radiated out from the landing site of the Ark, today’s living varieties and their fossilized ancestors should reveal that pattern of dispersal. But as Darwin observed on his round-the-world voyage on the Beagle, the actual distribution of animal life is quite different. See chapters 11 and 12 of Origin of Species here.

Number 5: Where is the evidence of universal population bottlenecks? Except for a few species known to have recently recovered from near extinction, animal life on Earth shows far too much genetic diversity to be descended from only a pair of Ark-borne ancestors a few thousand years ago.

Number 4: What about the water? One of our readers (docbill) told us about this website: All Water On Earth As Sphere Compared To Size Of Earth. Enough water to cover the entire Earth to the height of the tallest mountains would require a much larger sphere of liquid. Where did that extra water come from, and more importantly — where did it go?

Number 3: What about Egypt? They have a written history that precedes, is co-existent with, and which continues uninterruptedly after the time of the Flood, yet somehow they were unaware of that catastrophic global event. The same is true for the Chinese and other cultures. How did a global Flood somehow ignore them, leaving their societies intact?

Number 2: The Earth’s geology is all wrong if there were a recent global flood. This topic is not only too large to explain here, but there’s also the limitation that your Curmudgeon isn’t a geologist. Nevertheless, we know that it was the development of geology that caused belief in the Flood to be discarded. We once posted briefly about one bit of geological evidence that clearly contradicts the Flood myth. See Can Noah’s Flood Explain Banded Iron Stripes?

And the Number One reason the Flood is mythology is: It didn’t work! We’re told that the purpose of the ghastly planet-killing exercise is that mankind was wicked. That’s the reason everything was cruelly destroyed — except for Noah, his righteous family, and their chosen menagerie. Okay, fine, but there’s one little detail — the whole business was a colossal futility! There is still wickedness in the world, which means the planetary slaughter was not only cruel beyond imagining, it was also stupid. But even a creationist would agree that such behavior is incompatible with the nature of God, so the only rational conclusion is that the Flood is a childish myth.

Okay, there you are — the Curmudgeon’s top ten reasons. Feel free to add your own.

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