Is the Great Flood of the Bible literal or symbolic.

OK Bear, you put up a couple graphics.
Now what?

Sorry for the poor graphics quality.

I printed them to see them clearly.
What is the point you are going to make?

Gotta go, see you tomorrow.

I found this topic and the claim that 'pole shifts' happened recently and are about to happen again intriguing.  When I was an undergraduate taking a philosophy of science course, we were required to write a paper on pseudoscience.  I chose a book called "Pole Shift" by John White who claims, like Duane, that we are about to experience one of these events soon.  At any rate, it is useful to examine whether or not such an event could occur.  Geologists have assembled reasonable evidence for the following:

(a) Motion of the continents (lithosphere)


(b) Motion of the mantle+lithosphere as a single unit called True polar wander.  The magnitude of this 'whole outer earth' motion is 1-2 degrees/million years max.


(c) Physically, it is also possible for the entire outer part of the earth to move through 90 degrees in a process called intertial interchange true polar wander (IITPW).  What happens is that the moment of the intermediate axis of inertia becomes slightly greater than the maximum inertial axis (they are quite close anyway) such that the two interchange (i.e. intermediate becomes maximum and maximum becomes intermediate).  While this is physically possible, the only postulated IITPW event (Kirschvink et al., 1997) did not hold up under scrutiny (see Torsvik et al., 1998 and Meert, 1999).  I should also point out that this event takes ~15 million years to occur (66 cm/year).  It does not happen as fast as postulated in this discussion.  Basically, the viscosity of the mantle limits the speed at which the mass redistribution can take place.


(d) Magnetic reversals: Here (as others have mentioned), the north magnetic pole becomes oppositely directed, but there is no geographic change.  For example, today the inclination at the north magnetic pole is straight down, in a reversal, the inclination would be straight up.

The bible speaks figuratively about earth changes in the days of Peleg, you are free to interpret the bible in this manner, but the evidence you cite (ice cores) has no bearing whatsoever on the issue of whether or not inertial axes have tumbled through 180 degrees (a double interchange event).  Basically a short interchange event such as Duane wishes would require a near instantaneous response to mass imbalance and a near water-like viscosity for the mantle.  That would have devastating effects on the continents which would sink rapidly to the core boundary and extinguish all life.  So, it's up to Duane to posit a physical process that could result in such an event without causing other problems.

Ref:

Kirschvink et al. 1997, Science v. 277, pp. 541-545.
Torsvik et al., 1998, Science v. 279, p 9a (can be viewed online at http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/279/5347/9a)
Meert, 1999. Earth Planetary Science Letters, v. 168, 131-144 (can be downloaded at http://www.clas.ufl.edu/users/jmeert/meert.pdf&nbsp

  I have so got to go back for my doctorate. Referencing my own work would be cool. I'd be all "Look! I've done original work! On THIS VERY TOPIC! I rule!".

   Right or wrong, conclusive or inconclusive as my results might be.

 

So, it's up to Duane to posit a physical process that could result in such an event without causing other problems.

Well, I am in no posit(ion) to do that, that's for sure.
Maybe in a few years...

Yes Duane, you are the one saying that it happened not us. You are the one saying that science is wrong about how physics work.

It is up to you to do your own homework, we are not going to do it for you. And until you can show that what you propose is physicaly possible and also had a lick of evedence for it happening when you say it did, do not blame us for not believing you.

No one knows for sure what happened thousands of years ago,

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  Sure we do. I know that an asteroid struck 65 million years ago with far more certainty than I know George Bush is president, for instance.

but it is a scientific fact that the earth's axis does change, and that over millions of years it DOES result in a complete pole shift. However, this process is much slower and more gradual than what Duane described.

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  Um, no. You misread. "It's theoretically possible for such an event to occur over many millions of years, but the only possible such event was ruled out."

   So, no, it hasn't happened. Nor did the Earth's axis of rotation change. Nor, in fact, can it. I think Joe was talking about wandering continents, not a flip-flop of the earth's rotational axis.

 

 

Probably not; the scale is all wrong.

A large asteroid could indeed cause the tilt of the Earth's axis to change, but that is something different than what Duane is positing.

 

Originally posted by Morat
  I have so got to go back for my doctorate. Referencing my own work would be cool. I'd be all "Look! I've done original work! On THIS VERY TOPIC! I rule!".

   Right or wrong, conclusive or inconclusive as my results might be.

 

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JM: I try to back my posts with some science.  In this case, it just so happens that the subject was along the lines of what I do.   That was just lucky

 

Originally posted by FordPrefect
Thanks for that post Hank, I am going to read that and hopefully memorize it for the next time I am confronted with the vapour canopy pipe dream

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Well at least one.

Originally by Hank

First- the global flood supposedly (Scripturally) covered the planet, and Mount Everest is 8,848 meters tall. The diameter of the earth at the equator, on the other hand, is 12,756.8 km. All we have to do is calculate the volume of water to fill a sphere with a radius of the Earth + Mount Everest; then we subtract the volume of a sphere with a radius of the Earth. Now, I know this won't yield a perfect result, because the Earth isn't a perfect sphere, but it will serve to give a general idea about the amounts involved

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It should be realized that the Bible does not say that any mountains in Noah’s day were as tall as Mount Everest. Scientists have said that in the past many of the mountains were much lower than at present and that some have even been pushed up from under the seas. Furthermore, it is believed that there was a time when the oceans themselves were smaller and the continents were larger than they are now, as testified to by river channels extending far out under the oceans. But regarding the present situation, National Geographic magazine, in its issue of January 1945, reported: “There is ten times as much water by volume in the ocean as there is land above sea level. Dump all this land evenly into the sea, and water would cover the entire earth, one and one-half miles deep.” So, after the floodwaters fell, but before the raising of mountains and the lowering of seabeds caused water to drain off the land and before the buildup of polar ice caps, there was ample water to cover “all the tall mountains,” as the Bible states.—Genesis 7:17-20; 8:1-3; compare Psalm 104:6-9.


Psalm 104:6-9
With a watery deep just like a garment you covered it.
The waters were standing above the very mountains.
7 At your rebuke they began to flee;
At the sound of your thunder they were sent running in panic—
8 Mountains proceeded to ascend,
Valley plains proceeded to descend—
To the place that you have founded for them.
9 A boundary you set, beyond which they should not pass,
That they should not again cover the earth.

So the waters covered "all the tall mountains" because there were no "tall mountains"?

Then why would an author from an era were there were "tall mountains" call the small hills that were around at flooding time "tall mountains"?

Originally posted by Freodin
So the waters covered "all the tall mountains" because there were no "tall mountains"?

Then why would an author from an era were there were "tall mountains" call the small hills that were around at flooding time "tall mountains"?

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Compare these scriptures.

Genesis 7:19-20 And the waters overwhelmed the earth so greatly that all the tall mountains that were under the whole heavens came to be covered. Up to fifteen cubits the waters overwhelmed them and the mountains became covered.

Deuteronomy 12:1-2 YOU should absolutely destroy all the places where the nations whom YOU are dispossessing have served their gods, on the tall mountains and the hills and under every luxuriant tree.

The highest points in Israel were the hills of Samaria and of Judah rising to just over 3,300 ft so the term here “Tall Mountains” is relative.

And so it was in the genesis account and was used to indicate that no dry land appeared above the water to show it was a global flood.