Psst: it says great fish. Not whale. If you’re going to be nit picky, you should start with the fact that whales aren’t fish.
We read the word whale into this story because, duh, we think anything that big has to be a whale. But the book doesn’t say whale, and, as you pointed out, a whale would be impossible.
“But there’s no fish big enough!”
Maybe not today (or maybe there is today, we have not explored nearly enough of the ocean to say with certainty what isn’t in it). But thousands of years ago? A giant fish species that went extinct whose fossils we haven’t found? Maybe.
Or, maybe, if God is all-powerful as the Bible says He is, He could have just made a big enough fish with the right kind of digestive system to hold somebody for 3 days. Just one, for this purpose.
All of this aside, trying to convince Christians that the story of Jonah is false is probably the least efficient way to try to make us atheists. While we believe the Bible is inerrant and inspired, our faith does not rest on what kind of sea creature swallowed Jonah.
It rests on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Prove us wrong on that, prove that Jesus did not rise from the dead, and we’ll all go home. The Apostle Paul even says that in the very Bible we trust in. Christianity is falsifiable if you can prove the resurrection didn’t happen.
When I say prove, I mean find actual evidence. Not just “but people can’t rise from the dead, I know because I’ve never seen it!”, but actual proof that Jesus died and did not rise again (as many secular historians believe that Jesus did at least exist somewhere around 30 AD). Most convincing would be His bones/remains, if you could find those. But since the Roman government and the Jewish religious leaders were pretty keen on finding them in the first few years after Jesus’ death and resurrection and were unable to do so, and had to resort to killing believers in order to try to silence them, good luck.
I would also accept an authenticated signed confession from one of the Apostles that they made the whole thing up and underwent persecution, torture, poverty, and social isolation for a lie in order to convince other people to believe in that lie and be persecuted and tortured and rejected because of it. But since most of the Apostles were martyred for what they taught, and were given multiple chances to deny it and live and did not take those options, again, good luck.
If you could find an earlier copy or original manuscript of one or more of the Gospel books that was drastically different from what we have today and if this copy denied the Resurrection, I’d be skeptical but I’d be willing to listen. But again, good luck, since our earliest copies and fragments that date within 300 years of the original manuscripts have no significant variations from what we have today (nothing that disputes the content of what we have, spelling errors at most).
If you can invent time travel and take me back in time to Jesus’s crucifixion, and if we could hang out by the tomb for a couple of days, and if instead of Jesus rising from the dead we saw the disciples steal the body, there you go. I’d love the time travel option, actually, because if I’m right then we could settle it right then and there because an earthquake and angels and Jesus walking around talking to people and eating dinner with them would be pretty hard to ignore.
It’s always hilarious when atheists use God’s Word to prove He doesn’t exist.
Uncle Dave touches kids
I accept your declaration that you are a stupid son of a bitch who can’t argue his way out of his own ass.
Air pockets can occur in sharks (great white? Megalodon? Anyone?) if they swallow their prey whole at the surface. Shark digestive systems move extremely slowly. Some sharks can even vomit out their entire stomach if they want (the whole organ leaves the body, emptying itself, then they reswallow it). Sharks are, wait for it… fish.
Next question.
People who demand evidence of God’s existence prove only that they do not understand the nature of faith.
If a deity can create the universe, how difficult would it be for him to keep a man alive inside a fish?
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