zuker12 Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 Since I've not explored this topic yet, I'd like to discuss the flood and whether it ever happened. http://creation.com/engineer-goes-back-to-school This article proudly boasts that the biblical flood would be a "solution to all those geological unanswered puzzles". Now I'm a totally newbie in this subject. I don't know where I would begin to research this, what should I look for, and why. I'm hoping someone can introduce me to the subject. The flood, if it ever happened is compelling evidence for the Bible, of course. That article is pretty much just a scratch on the surface and didn't really introduce me to serious scholarship, but it piqued my interest. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Avandris Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-noahs-ark.html#flood That webpage is actually quite good, takes it step by step and provides references for the points it makes. Hope it helps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogueScholar Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 You understand for moving water to create major geologic features on the order of biblical time scales the water would have to move at impossible velocities? You understand to cover the entire planet, the water level would have to exceed 29,000 feet above sea level? Rather hard for humans in a boat to live at such a high altitude and I will try to refrain from asking about where all the water came from and where it went. I could keep going but to answer just the two questions above, you would need to inject a whole bunch of god magic into the equation for it to work. In one hand we have contemporary geological theories that pretty much explain the big picture using verifiable, testable and potentially falsifiable naturalistic explanations. In the other hand we have invisible, never detected, unexplainable, magical god juice. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Orbit Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 The Flood story is clearly exaggerated. Because it does show up in other cultures, I find it reasonable that there is some truth to it, where religions and myths described a lengthy monsoon season or similar. But as for the whole earth being covered with water, no. I don't think there is any hard geological evidence for the Bible version. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mymistake Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 Since I've not explored this topic yet, I'd like to discuss the flood and whether it ever happened. http://creation.com/engineer-goes-back-to-school This article proudly boasts that the biblical flood would be a "solution to all those geological unanswered puzzles". Now I'm a totally newbie in this subject. I don't know where I would begin to research this, what should I look for, and why. I'm hoping someone can introduce me to the subject. The flood, if it ever happened is compelling evidence for the Bible, of course. That article is pretty much just a scratch on the surface and didn't really introduce me to serious scholarship, but it piqued my interest. The flood story is impossible. There is no way it could have happened. However if it had happened then it would not prove the God of the Bible. You see the story was plagiarized from the Epic of Gilgamesh. So a real global flood would be evidence that the Mesopotamian gods are real. Are you prepared to worship Ishkur, Marduk, Enlin, Ninhursag, Anu and Nabu? It was their story first. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Overcame Faith Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 There is an interesting idea for how the various flood myths began. At the end of the last ice age some 10,000 years ago when the great sheets of ice began to melt, the result in some regions around the world were great floods. People alive then and who lived in the flooded regions may have passed on this history through their oral traditions. Of course, from their perspective, it may have seemed to be worldwide and thus the beginning of the flood myths, including the one in Genesis and many other sources, too. These floods were not as described in Genesis and other sources, but the great melting at the end of the last ice age could account for them. Here is an interesting article about it. http://discovermagazine.com/2012/jul-aug/06-biblical-type-floods-real-absolutely-enormous Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amateur Posted July 30, 2014 Share Posted July 30, 2014 Huge floods are terrifying to this day. Of course there would be stories of regional, destructive floods, and of course if you lived thousands of years ago and were unaware of the other huge continents out there you would think a big flood or tsunami was world-wide. I can easily understand how a huge, destructive, local flood which occurred once in the lifetime of a nation could be considered a huge punishment from a god or gods. But an actual world-wide flood with one family and a pair of each animal being saved, and god orchestrating it all to wipe out all of the evil humanity, including babies, he had just made (a thousand years being a day in his sight, blahblah)? Nah. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sdelsolray Posted July 31, 2014 Share Posted July 31, 2014 Since I've not explored this topic yet, I'd like to discuss the flood and whether it ever happened. http://creation.com/engineer-goes-back-to-school This article proudly boasts that the biblical flood would be a "solution to all those geological unanswered puzzles". Now I'm a totally newbie in this subject. I don't know where I would begin to research this, what should I look for, and why. I'm hoping someone can introduce me to the subject. The flood, if it ever happened is compelling evidence for the Bible, of course. That article is pretty much just a scratch on the surface and didn't really introduce me to serious scholarship, but it piqued my interest. Your referenced article is a rather sophisticated creationist presentation. Nevertheless, it contains many fanciful claims, misrepresentations and logical fallacies. I don't have the time right now to identify these flaws. Sorry about that. I would suggest you study the question using secular resources which generally present real facts, real science and real analysis. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravenstar Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 Just one point to consider: If the world was covered in water (up to the tops of the mountains) then the atmospheric pressure would be enough to boil everything alive... Just one of the physics realities that makes the story as it is told in the Bible ridiculous. I agree with the worldwide sea rise and flooding that would have occurred at the end of the last Ice Age making a great impression on the neolithic peoples, and passed down orally for a very long time.. all over the world. This seems much more plausible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WaitingInfinity Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 Because the flood waters were kind enough to neatly organize all of the fossils and layers of rock perfectly with the respective eras AND make it convincingly look and test as though it were actually from millions of years ago. Praise God, who is not the author of confusion! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thought2Much Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 Just one point to consider: If the world was covered in water (up to the tops of the mountains) then the atmospheric pressure would be enough to boil everything alive... Actually, this is probably the one thing from the Flood story that isn't a problem, and doesn't require a miracle to solve. Atmospheric air pressure is determined by how much air is sitting on top of you at any given moment. There is more air sitting on top of you at sea level than at 5000 feet above it. This is because the air settles into close to an average depth around the world, and the areas of higher elevation cut up into the atmosphere while pushing air aside, leaving the top of the atmosphere in about the same spot everywhere. However, if you were to flood the earth with an additional 29,000 feet of water, that would increase the overall radius of the earth by 29,000 feet, or about 5.5 miles. You would, however, have exactly the same volume and the same mass of air as you did before; the water would push that volume/mass of air upward by 29,000 feet, so you would still have almost exactly the same amount of air pushing down on you at the surface as you do now at sea level. Since the radius of the earth would be ever so slightly larger as a percentage, the same volume of air wouldn't cover it quite as much, so the average air pressure would be slightly less, but it would be a tiny fraction of a percent, and completely unnoticeable without precise measuring equipment. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogueScholar Posted August 1, 2014 Share Posted August 1, 2014 However, the exceptionally exotic atmospheric conditions that would be necessary to cover the tallest mountains of this world would be particularly concerning. Some of the models used to find plausible ways of covering the earth in water suggest exceptionally devastating phenomena would have to occur. Unfortunately for the flood hypothesis, the evidence of such processes would be readily apparent today after only a few thousand years. Injecting a bit of magical god juice seems like the only reasonable way of making the flood model fit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skepticalme Posted August 3, 2014 Share Posted August 3, 2014 Since I've not explored this topic yet, I'd like to discuss the flood and whether it ever happened. http://creation.com/engineer-goes-back-to-school This article proudly boasts that the biblical flood would be a "solution to all those geological unanswered puzzles". Now I'm a totally newbie in this subject. I don't know where I would begin to research this, what should I look for, and why. I'm hoping someone can introduce me to the subject. The flood, if it ever happened is compelling evidence for the Bible, of course. That article is pretty much just a scratch on the surface and didn't really introduce me to serious scholarship, but it piqued my interest. That article demonstrates how engineer's aren't scientist. An engineer knows the rock types, formations, rock layers and can do the math. A scientist knows why those things are the way they are. For example, he specifically states banded layers of coal resembling bacon are evidence of a flood. Why would that be the case? If all that vegitation and rock were layed down in one huge event, there would be a single, nearly homgenious layer. The fact that there are layers means that it changed biomes over and over for a long period of time. Another example, "Tas found that graphs of ratios of various non-radioactive elements also gave nice lines, which means that there must be causes for the lines apart from radioactive decay. This means that the lines based on radioactive elements cannot be assumed to represent the age of the rock." To someone who actually understands what this means, it is increadibly stupid. I bet those non-radioactive elements did give nice lines, nice flat lines since they don't radioactively decay. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RogueScholar Posted August 3, 2014 Share Posted August 3, 2014 I think the line between disciplines can get blurry but rather than say one person is or is not a scientist, I thinks it's useful to understand specialisation. For example, I would not expect a marine biologist to have a great appreciation of high energy physics, nor would I expect a high energy physicist to predict the spectrochemical series of an inorganic complex in solution. The science and technical disciplines have become so specialised that a real scientifically inclined person would admit where they are ignorant as opposed to saying "I'm a scientist therefore I'm qualified to talk about everything." Of course significant crossover of disciplines frequently occurs. The line between physics and chemistry is very blurry as well as the line between biology and chemistry. I don't know enough about geology to make any confident assertions but I bet significant crossover occurs with that field and other disciplines as well. Even amateurs may beat out scientifically educated people. For example, I am immersed in scientific and technical studies currently. I'm using a significant amount of organic and biochemistry to understand the actions and interactions of drugs. While I'm certainly using and appreciating some science, I would not claim to understand in any great detail, concepts like cosmology. In fact, a self proclaimed amateur like BornAgainAtheist probably knows and understands the field much better than I. In fact, I'd bet he knows much more than many other people that have better education than I. There is where the problem lies IMHO. People not admitting ignorance. An overinflated ego is a terrible thing and religious ideology is great for doing just that. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roz Posted August 3, 2014 Share Posted August 3, 2014 With respect to everyone here who are talking about the various contradictions and impossibilities of the flood story, you guys all know the standard christian line to this. "God did it." The story's just like the impossible census that somehow took into account Joseph's ancestry ties across 1 millennium so they had to journey to Bethlehem. How did the animals get into the ark? magic How did the flood waters rise to impossible heights? magic How did they all survive in the ark? magic What happened? Did they all poop or eat? who cares, magic How could god be so cruel as to drown babies? He must've used his magic powers to make them die peacefully, or he magically took them to heaven somehow, or he killed them without them feeling it and then took them to heaven Magic! yay jesus, he is good! Their god glasses makes them blind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skepticalme Posted August 3, 2014 Share Posted August 3, 2014 I think the line between disciplines can get blurry but rather than say one person is or is not a scientist, I thinks it's useful to understand specialisation. For example, I would not expect a marine biologist to have a great appreciation of high energy physics, nor would I expect a high energy physicist to predict the spectrochemical series of an inorganic complex in solution. The science and technical disciplines have become so specialised that a real scientifically inclined person would admit where they are ignorant as opposed to saying "I'm a scientist therefore I'm qualified to talk about everything." Of course significant crossover of disciplines frequently occurs. The line between physics and chemistry is very blurry as well as the line between biology and chemistry. I don't know enough about geology to make any confident assertions but I bet significant crossover occurs with that field and other disciplines as well. Even amateurs may beat out scientifically educated people. For example, I am immersed in scientific and technical studies currently. I'm using a significant amount of organic and biochemistry to understand the actions and interactions of drugs. While I'm certainly using and appreciating some science, I would not claim to understand in any great detail, concepts like cosmology. In fact, a self proclaimed amateur like BornAgainAtheist probably knows and understands the field much better than I. In fact, I'd bet he knows much more than many other people that have better education than I. There is where the problem lies IMHO. People not admitting ignorance. An overinflated ego is a terrible thing and religious ideology is great for doing just that. Excellent points. To the lay person, those lines may be blurred to being non-existant in there eyes. But the goals between the two professions are distinct regardless of personal apptitude towards both. The best engineers excell at applying established theories in the real world. However, knowing why those theories are what they are isn't nessecarily a requirement. Scientist delve much more into the why instead of the what. A chemical engineer needs to know the periodic table and the interaction of all those chemicals and the compounds they produce. A chemical scientist has to understand why those chemicals interact as they do and discovers new processes that engineers can use. A chemical scientist discovers new ways of making carbon nanotubes while an engineer industrializes it. The engineer doesn't nessecarily have to know why they form, just that they do and mass produce them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
♦ nivek ♦ Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 Post #7:I live near Wallula Gap on the Columbia River Gorge of which page 1 in article has a major section. This area is fantastic for an amateur rock dog as myself. Area is so remote and like Mars'' surface rovers and other testing equipment were worked over and tuned here. If a person is honest with themselves looking over areas stripped to basaltic bedrock, some scientific counts make up to 40-150 possible floods, there is no forking way "goddidit" holds up. For those inclined, using a global mapping service, looking at "Bretz Flooding", "Spokane Floods", you can train your mind to see results to visible results. YECreeps and other assorted people who cannot wrap their minds about ages and times, localized massive destructive flooding are that way on purpose. All I have to do is start shoveling in the desert across road from my home.. kL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExCBooster Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 I live really far inland, in the middle of a pretty big continent. I can walk outside, and find fossils from a coral reef that used to be here. Actually, my whole city exists because of said coral reef... You know how slow coral grows? Really, really, REALLY dang slow. A mature coral reef is over 10,000 years old (already well over the 6,000 year limit of young Earth explanations). The rocks under my house are made of the skeletal houses of long dead tiny sea animals, that were built up on top of each other for thousands of years at a stretch. It would take a truly bind-boggling amount of time for this coral reef to start, grow, thrive, die, get buried by sediment, turn to stone (along with the layers laid down on top of it), eroded away by wind and water and ice, and eventually cause rapids in the Ohio river prompting people to stop and settle here. A LOT longer than just 6000 years. The coral reef in my back yard did NOT all happen in just 40 days. More like 390 Million years. The flood myth is exactly that: a myth. I've stubbed my toe on the evidence that the Earth's history did not go down like the Bible says. Besides, we have plenty of human habitaton, from long, long before the flood. You'd think all those mud-brick houses would have melted, and all those gorgeous cave paintings would have been washed away. Let alone entirely what we know about Earth's history, where's the water damage? (But, if you want a very nice, understandable, comprehensive overview, it's hard to beat the UCMP Berkeley online exhibits. They have topics on everything from science in general, to geologic time, to coelacanths. I love coelacanths! Squee!) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ravenstar Posted August 7, 2014 Share Posted August 7, 2014 I've stubbed my toe on the evidence that the Earth's history did not go down like the Bible says. Best line EVER! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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