The Flood

lucaspa · #31 20th January 2004, 09:45 AM

Larry, here we have examples of the handwaving I mentioned. Now, remember that the Flood was very violent. It had to be to sweep up all that sediment and move it to deposit it as all the sedimentary rock. Also remember that the Flood was violent enough to carve all river valleys, even the Grand Canyon.

Originally Posted by Ark Guy

Some fish changed while some fish didn't. The coelecanth apparently didn't change.(which presents a major problem for evolutionism)

Not a problem. The two coelencanth species alive today are not the same species that were alive 65 million years ago. They are not even in the same genus. Coelencanth is a family name.

1. Some fish can gradually become accustomed to a wide range of ambient salinities.

But there is no "gradual" in the Flood. Salinity changed drastically in the span of hours or days. To become accustomed requires weeks.

2. Some fish are an Euryhaline organism. They can live in both saltwater (SW) and freshwater (FW). For example, the Cichlid fish Tilapia grahami is found in SW but can maintain itself in FW.

But that doesn't explain how we get fresh and saltwater fish now. If only these type of fish survived, we should have only fish that can live in fresh and saltwater now.

3. As the temperature of water increases a brackish water fish can live in levels of almost no salinity. This could have occurred near a volcano.

But the violent Flood doesn't allow that water to stay warm. The mixing keeps cooling it off. Plus the violent Flood doesn't allow fish to remain in one place. They are going to be swept all over the ocean. Finally, Genesis 6-8 doesn't say there were volcanoes. Simply rain and water coming from the deep.

4. Different individuals within the same species can have different salt
tolerances. This would have allowed the fish with the correct tolerance
to survive.

The current tolerances aren't that wide. However, notice that you are invoking natural selection! Something creationists in other contexts says don't work. There are limits of variability, according to creationists, aren't there?

5. Antediluvian fish could have been more tolerant of saltwater that the fishes of today. Micro evolutionary in salt tolerances could have changed
in the few thousand years since the flood.

These are not microevolutionary changes. These are major changes in physiology. Also, notice the ad hoc "could have been more tolerant of saltwater". In other contexts, creationists claim that science deals only with observations and not speculation. Here we have a blatant speculation.

6. Antediluvian seas were probably less saltier than todays seas.

Another blatant speculation. Based on what?

7. The layers of FW to SW would have stratified in certain areas of the globe. The fish could move up or down to adjust itself to the salt level.

That can only happen if the water is perfectly still. The violent Flood has no such place anywhere on earth.

8. During the flood sheltered cracks could have formed separating the
hi-saline water from the less saltier walter. This could have provided
protection for the fish and its fauna.

Again, the violent Flood would have put water flow thru any crack. A Flood violent enough to erode enough rock to make all the sedimentary rock isn't going to allow any sheltered crack anywhere. Again, notice the "could have formed". In other contexts, creationists don't allow speculation like this.

9. Only two of millions/billions?, a male and female of the same kind
needed to survive the flood inorder to repopulate the waters.

But many species didn't survive. Thus you are saying that it is pure chance? OK, then why is it that so many species of teleostean fish survived but none of the chondrichthys fish? Anyone calculate those odds? In other contexts creationsts claim that impossible odds falsify theories. These odds here are just as impossible but we are supposed to say they are OK.

See, Larry? Handwaving and special pleading.

Ark Guy · #32 20th January 2004, 08:43 PM

[noflame]

Larry · #33 20th January 2004, 09:24 PM

Now I'm really confused.

Larry · #34 20th January 2004, 09:48 PM

I would like to hear from those who side with Ark Guy's views, but without all the personal attacks Ark Guy dishes out. I don't want to hear about "This person is uninformed...", or "He's a moron", or anything that talks about the other people. All I want is the positions and reasons on the flood. If a refutation is needed, please refute the position and reasoning, not the person presenting the positions and reasons. Is this asking too much? Does every single discussion have to be made into a personal, knock-down drag-out fight?

Ark Guy, I respect your positions. I really do. But, when you resort to attacking people in this thread, you lose much credibility with me. Try to stay focused on the topic being discussed. Can you do that?

lucaspa · #35 20th January 2004, 11:58 PM

Originally Posted by Ark Guy

Well here we go, the uninformed speaks...that would be lucaspa.

The Grand Canyon happened after the flood when the natural dam broke and the hopi lake spilled into and formed what is now the Grand Canyon.

Where is this in the creationist literature? In The Genesis Flood by Whitcomb and Morris, the authors state explicitly that all incised canyons, and the Grand Canyon in particular, were formed when the floodwaters drained into the ocean basins.

"To me, Grand Canyon is a clear testimony to the Biblical flood and the young earth." http://www.icr.org/pubs/btg-b/btg-066b.htm

"If one denies the global flood as a historic event, he might use the Grand Canyon/Colorado River system to "prove" great ages, when, in reality, the Canyon demonstrates flooding processes with rates, scales, and intensities eclipsing anything observed today. " http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-311.htm

Now, are creationists changing their theories based on new evidence? Has Whitcomb and Morris' evidence for the Grand Canyon being formed by the draining of the waters of the Flood been "reinterpreted"?

lucaspa · #36 21st January 2004, 12:13 AM

Originally Posted by Ark Guy

The Grand Canyon happened after the flood when the natural dam broke and the hopi lake spilled into and formed what is now the Grand Canyon.

That doesn't change that the Flood was violent.

"The tranquil-flood theory is even more ridiculous. It is difficult to believe anyone could take it seriously and yet a number of modem evangelical geologists do believe in this idea. Even local floods are violent phenomena and uniformitarian geologists today believe they are responsible for most of the geologic deposits of the earth’s crust. A universal Flood that could come and go softly, leaving no geologic evidence of its passage, would require an extensive complex of miracles for its accomplishment. Anyone with the slightest understanding of the hydraulics of moving water and the hydrodynamic forces associated with it would know that a world-wide "tranquil" flood is about as reasonable a concept as a tranquil explosion!"
http://www.icr.org/pubs/imp/imp-006.htm

Robert Kofahl and Kelly Segraves from _The Creation Explanation_
(1975) P. 226

"The Flood was accompanied by violent movements of the Earth's crust and by
volcanic activities of momentous proportions. Tremendous tidal waves and
rushing currents scoured and deeply eroded the continental surface. Entire
forests were ripped up and transported long distances to be dumped where the
currents slowed." In John Whitcomb and Henry Morris, in _The Genesis Flood_ (1961)
pp. 242-243

"Yielding of the crust at even one point, with resultant escape of magmas and
water or steam, would lead to earth movements causing further fractures
until, as the scriptures portray so graphically, 'the same day were all
fountains of the great deep broken up' (Genesis 7:11) Truly this was a
gigantic catastrophe, beside which the explosions of the largest hydrogen
bomb, or a hundred such bombs, becomes insignificant!"

J.E. Schmich, "The Flood and the Ark": "Creation Research Society Quarterly"
11:2:94-97 (1974)

"The worldwide ocean of the Genesis flood was swept by wind storms that would make modern tornadoes seem like a zephyr."

Now, for those watching, what Ark Guy has done is called "synecdoche". It means letting a part stand for the whole.

My whole quote was "Now, remember that the Flood was very violent. It had to be to sweep up all that sediment and move it to deposit it as all the sedimentary rock. Also remember that the Flood was violent enough to carve all river valleys, even the Grand Canyon."

Now, rather than deny the main argument -- that the Flood was very violent -- Ark Guy focusses in on the part about the Flood carving river valleys, even the Grand Canyon.

So Ark Guy tries to refute that, thinking then that he has refuted the violent Flood and thus the refutations of his arguments about fish!

I have shown that this is invalid. Even conceding he is correct concerning creationist positions about the Grand Canyon, there are still innumerable statements by creationists that the Flood was very violent. His attempt to let the part of the Grand Canyon stand for the whole of a violent Flood have failed.

Ark Guy finishes by another attempt at synecdoche:

if lucaspa can't get that right...then why should we believe what else he presents?

Rather than deal with the arguments, he attempts to discredit me personally and set the stage such that he can dismiss anything I say.

However, ideas must be taken one at a time. Einstein was wrong about quantum mechanics. But we don't throw out Relativity because of that. Hawking was wrong about the arrow of time moving backwards in a collapsing universe, but we don't throw out radiating black holes on that account. Linus Pauling was wrong about vitamin C and colds, but we don't throw out his work on semiconductors as a result.

Ark Guy, this way out for you isn't going to work. You have to deal with the ideas, not personal attacks.

Spotty · #37 21st January 2004, 01:43 AM

Originally Posted by Ark Guy

The Grand Canyon happened after the flood when the natural dam broke and the hopi lake spilled into and formed what is now the Grand Canyon.

Ark,

Do you believe that Adam and Eve existed as real people, and as such what are their approximate dates - the usual answer is around 4004 BC; do you agree? Furthermore, what then is the approximate date of the Flood?

Reason being, I'd be interested in your accounts of the indigenous cultures of that particular time period in various locations of the world outside of the Ancient Near East. For your sake, they had better not exist because they should be wiped out by the Flood.

Furthermore...from aforementioned futhermore - the world wide devestation of a global Flood would present a problem for the vast multiplication of peoples across the world in various continents which exist shortly after the Flood date.

-Spotty

Spotty · #38 21st January 2004, 01:45 AM

***Moved from OBOB***

Originally Posted by Ark Guy

If Adam is an allegorical person and not really created as per Genesis, that is he was an evolved being...then where does this list change from fact to allegory?

Can you bible believing allegorist tell me?

Between Abraham and Noah.

Spotty · #39 21st January 2004, 01:47 AM

***Moved from OBOB***

Originally Posted by Ark Guy

If Genesis is just an myth...then why do the NT authors lie when they talk about it?

Think about it, if the bible is fulled with so many errors as the Theo-Evo crowd requires..then what good is it? How do you seperate the fact from fiction?

They don't "lie" about it.

Scripture is useful for what? 2 Timothy 3:15-17. It says nothing about scientific or historical accuarcy.

Rather, it states it is God breathed for a purpose. Not that it is God-breathed period. Therefore, Scripture is authoritatve as far and only as far as the aforemetioned purpose allows it to be. Read the verses and you'll see its uses, to answer your question, are related to the attributes of righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ for our salvation. Not who said what when or when and if there was a literal flood: the message of Scripture stays the same.

Christ can be traced back to David in a biological lineage, and to Adam in a spiritual lineage though no prophecy requires him to be traced to Adam as a real man.

I don't have all the answers, Ark, though I do have knowledge and reason enough to know that Adam was not the first man to exist in 4004 BC (when Creationists traditionally give the start date). Science is objective, and we can be sure that since according to Paul nature is God's proof, that nature wouldn't lie. Nature is old because it says it is old. Theology is in the Bible. Science is in Nature. They don't have to contradict. If science (archeology, cosmic foundations and times) doesn't mesh with our interpretation of the Bible, then we can be sure that our interpretation is at fault - not the Bible itself.

-Spotty

Karl - Liberal Backslider · #40 21st January 2004, 04:08 AM

Hi Spotty! New to the CS&TE forum?

Nice to have you around.