Rafts of Baramins

Continuing the mini-series on the myth of the flood . . . 

First of all, what is a 'baramin'?  According to some creationists, the baramins are the 'created kinds' of animal that were on the ark.  The study of the taxonomy of these 'kinds of creatures is called baraminology, and people really waste their lives trying to demonstrated that this is a better explanation of the world of living things than evolution.

From the 'kinds' that were released after the flood, all the other species apparently evolved rather rapidly into the animals that share the world with us today.

Watching Revelation TV last weekend (which I sometimes do as a for a laugh - or possibly demonstrating a slightly masochistic tendency) I heard an American gentleman earnestly explaining that the dinosaurs actually were taken onto the ark and that he could prove it.

He explained that although nearly 600 species of dinosaur have already been identified and named, there were actually only 58 'kinds' of dinosaur and that the others were formed from them (during the last few thousand years, just before they became extinct of course).  Also there was plenty of room for them on the ark as Noah was careful to select juveniles which were only half a metre to one metre long.  (It was one of the best laughs I have had for a while.)

Creationists have a theory to explain how the animals got to all the continents of the world after the flood.  Rather than simply inferring that the flood was relatively localised, they postulate the idea of rafts of floating vegetation, left over from the devastation of the flood.  Apparently animals managed to survive for months as the cross the oceans to colonise distant parts of the world.  As they were travelling, the carnivores managed not to eat the others, and apparently none of them got thirsty.

Sigh - what people believe!

Not many more posts to go, on the topic of the flood.  Tomorrow I will muse on the distribution of the animals to the far 'corners' of the earth and then mention a story even more ancient than that of Noah.