Are we going to belive that they went without eating for 40 days and nights?
No reason to believe that, dear one (may you all have peace!):
"You are to take every kind of food that is to be eaten and store it away as food for you and for them.” Genesis 6:21
So the Watchtower was right, then, when it said that lions' teeth and bears' claws were designed that way to "rip open coconuts"?
Ummm... why would they need to do that, dear sir (peace to you!)? That assumes that Noah and Sons just threw unopened coconuts in the pens. Why wouldn't THEY have opened them, first??? I mean, sure, they had a lot to do what with cleaning out pens and all... but surely they could hack a coconut in half from time to time...
makes it rather bizarre that God would then make them predators afterwards, as all animal population was near extinction--
As was man, both made predators and near extinction, dear sd-7 (peace to you, as well!). We assume, though, that both man and animals ate the ginormous amounts of food we do today. Not that case at all. My Lord and disciples subsisted on a handful of grain at one point. David and his men ate the temple showbread - he had a lot of men, and there wasn't that much showbread. In addition, some animals go for days, if not weeks, without eating at all.
there's simply no way to provide enough vegetables for every animal species on earth for an entire year in a building the size of a football field.
Every animal species that exists today was not in existence at that time. MOST animal species that exist today were not in existence at that time. They were taken according to their KIND (phylus, family, genus)... and not according to the SPECIES. The species that exist TODAY evolved from those kinds. Except man... which is why he is the ONLY one of his species...
The Bible says nothing about hibernation, and that's debunked by the fact that Noah could send birds out to check if the ground is dry--can't do that if they're all asleep, right? Unless we assume he woke up the birds to do that, which requires a second assumption on top of the first which has no evidence to support it.
Yet, there are other animals that DO hibernate... orso, marsupial, and others. And their ancestors most probably did, as well. So, there wasn't much to worry about with these. But again, why assume that ANYTHING ate in the quantities we humans do today??
Hygiene is another matter. The water outside would've full of thousands of dead human and animal bodies, making it an extremely dangerous environment.
Uh-uh. Those would have been consumed by the predators IN the water... which were NOT taken on the Ark. Even so... it rained. Deluged, actually. LOTS of water... with no bodies whatsoever in it...
They'd have to store enough water to last for a YEAR for both themselves and all the animals. The water storage issue alone creates serious problems, much less the food.
If you go by the many false presumptions made today about how long man... and beast... can go WITHOUT water (or food). They used to say man could not go more than 3 days without water. Heck, I go more than 3 days without water. Now, it's what, about 3 weeks? And that they can't go without food for more than a week. Yet, people fast for up to a month. Animals have an even greater capacity to go without both... and or live on mere drops. All one has to do is watch a video of the Sahara or Kalahari to know this... and that's TODAY.
Confined spaces, the waste of thousands of different species mingling together, and I don't think Noah invented soap, that I am aware of. Or air freshener.
The stench wouldn't have bothered Noah and company, dear one. Any more than it bothered man when he lived with his livestock during the Dark Ages in Europe. Or the western cowboy days in the U.S. Or the great outback in Oz. Indeed, I remember, when I was shown the vision of the pillar of fire (which left the temple and entered into my Lord, and was then poured upon and entered into the folks at Pentecost)... when my Lord took me to Sinai and showed me the Israelite exodus. I remember two things quite vividly: the sound (of the people chattering and calling, the animals braying, mooing, cooing, and what not, and the goat/cow/sheep bells, etc., the wagon wheels, kids screaming, laughing, and crying)... and the SMELL. Oh... my... gosh.
I grew up in San Diego and have been to the zoo there close to a hundred times. And so I've smelled some stench. This, though, was like 50 zoos... all combined in one place. Yet... the people that I saw not only didn't seem to mind... they didn't even seem to notice.
Nomadic people live WITH their livestock all the time... and let me tell you, goat/sheep/cow/dog/PIG urine/feces... is HORRIBLE to smell. To US. That is NOT the case with everyone. Add in a little lion/tiger/bear/elephant/rhino pee... and so what? Zookeepers and others who engage in animal husbandry deal with it all the time. Even today.
Look, dear ones: if you want to find ways to convince yourself it didn't... couldn't... happen... you can and probably will. In the same light, if you want to try and understand how it COULD have happened... you can do that, as will. If you are sincere, you will see and understand not only that it COULD be done... but was and why.
Again, peace to you all!
A slave of Christ,
SA
