After the Flood!

[Galle]

So waving his finger, and making all the "corrupted" people disappear was too difficult, he had to resort to massive, illogical miracles to flood the Earth and have his entire creation inhale water to end the corruption? Seems awfully inefficient for an omnipotent being.

Not to mention the ridiculous, illogical, ad-hoc miracles needed to sustain Noah's Ark and its starving, dehydrated cargo.

Also magically whisking all the evidence for this catastrophe away, and then, for no reason at all, replacing it with the geological evidence of the 4.5 billion year Earth that we do see. Oh, except for the bit that He missed in the Bible. And He would have gotten away with it to, if it weren't for those darn kids!

And then there are the miracles in feeding the animals, especially the carnivores, once they were off the ark. And the miracles needed to magically grow the vegetation back. And the miraculous hyper-macro-evolution apparently needed to differentiate all those "kinds" into the species we see today. And the billions (trillions?) of miracles required to alter the DNA of each member of each new species in such a way that eradicates the evidence for the population bottleneck and prevents inbreeding. And then the miraculous transportation of these species across continents.

 

[Galle]

It's interesting you would use flood legends in response to a comment about the absence of scientific evidence for a global flood.

It's especially bizarre when you consider that this particular line of assertions is never used to support, say, the authenticity of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Why don't creationists talk about Upnapishtim's flood? Why don't those creation "scientists" bind stones to their feet so they can search the ocean floor?

 

[laptoppop]

Not to mention the ridiculous, illogical, ad-hoc miracles needed to sustain Noah's Ark and its starving, dehydrated cargo.

Already addressed lots of times. There was enough room on the ark for the critters and for food -- or it is quite conceivable that the animals went into hibernation. After all, God miraculously brought the animals to the ark in the first place.

Also magically whisking all the evidence for this catastrophe away, and then, for no reason at all, replacing it with the geological evidence of the 4.5 billion year Earth that we do see.

Actually the geologic evidence is more consistent with a global flood than any other explanation. There are lots of problems with consensus geology - such as the ability to transport the materials, having sequences of floods in the same regions, problems with the layering, etc.etc.

Oh, except for the bit that He missed in the Bible. And He would have gotten away with it to, if it weren't for those darn kids!

I don't even know what you are talking about here.

And then there are the miracles in feeding the animals, especially the carnivores, once they were off the ark. And the miracles needed to magically grow the vegetation back.

Already talked about.

And the miraculous hyper-macro-evolution apparently needed to differentiate all those "kinds" into the species we see today. And the billions (trillions?) of miracles required to alter the DNA of each member of each new species in such a way that eradicates the evidence for the population bottleneck and prevents inbreeding.

One of the dirty little secrets is that most changes result from DNA recombination, not mutations. More and more I'm coming to understand how the Lord allowed plenty of variation - but within proscribed limits.

And then the miraculous transportation of these species across continents.

already addressed.

 

[laptoppop]

It's especially bizarre when you consider that this particular line of assertions is never used to support, say, the authenticity of the Epic of Gilgamesh. Why don't creationists talk about Upnapishtim's flood? Why don't those creation "scientists" bind stones to their feet so they can search the ocean floor?

Ummm, maybe because we respect Scripture more than stories?

 

[Jadis40]

http://www.icr.org/pdf/research/rate-all.pdf

Which has been pretty much debunked, but that's off-topic.

Yet there's no archeaological evidence of homo habilis or homo erectus having any type of organized civilization.

I think the disconnect comes in trying to connect what we know as being truly human with civilization (language, culture, written history, organized religion, code of laws and so forth) There have been a lot of cultures that have risen and fallen throughout history, and the way we know about them is through the artifacts they've left behind.

Here are a few:

Corded Ware Culture (3200 BC-2900 BC) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corded_Ware_culture

Jomon Culture (Japan, ~12,000 BC) http://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/oldworld/asia/jomon.html

Cycladic Culture/Civilization: (Greece, 3000 BC-2000 BC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cycladic_civilization

Beaker Culture (Europe, including British Isles, 2800 BC-1900 BC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaker_People

Linear Pottery Culture (Much of Europe, 5500-4500 BC)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Pottery_culture

If you want more examples, read through the links down at the bottom of the page on the Linear Pottery Culture. Those range from the 5500 BC date up to 800 BC as the ending date for the Urnfield Culture.

Homo Habilis and Homo erectus are the same. They've left behind stone tools that are very similar to those made by Native Americans.

When we read the Bible against this background, it becomes apparent how small a slice of history we're actually working with.

 

[laptoppop]

You are making my point for me. If humans have been around for a couple hundred thousand years, then why are there only identified cultures within the past few thousand years? We can talk about the particular dates for the civilizations - but the primary point stands even stronger.

 

[Jadis40]

You are making my point for me. If humans have been around for a couple hundred thousand years, then why are there only identified cultures within the past few thousand years? We can talk about the particular dates for the civilizations - but the primary point stands even stronger.

My point was drawing on what you tied in to things like written history, cities and so on. Besides that, Europe was coming out of an Ice Age about 10,000 years ago. These cultures arose AFTER the ice had retreated.

Younger Dryas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas

And the science behind the date of 9600 BC, from the above article:

Measurements of oxygen isotopes from the GISP2 ice core suggest the ending of the Younger Dryas took place over just 40 - 50 years in three discrete steps, each lasting five years. Other proxy data, such as dust concentration, and snow accumulation, suggest an even more rapid transition, requiring a ~7 °C warming in just a few years [3] [4] [8] [9] [10].
The end of the Younger Dryas has been dated to around 9600 BC (11550 calendar years BP, occurring at 10000 radiocarbon years BP, a "radiocarbon plateau") by a variety of methods, with mostly consistent results:
11530±50 BP -- GRIP ice core, Greenland [11]
11530+40-60 BP -- Kråkenes Lake, western Norway. [12]
11570 BP -- Cariaco Basin core, Venezuela [13]
11570 BP -- German oak/pine dendrochronology [14]
11640±280 BP -- GISP2 ice core, Greenland [8]

Something else too, proof of this glaciation is readily available. All I have to do is drive 25 miles to Fort Wayne, or even just in this local area.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Maumee

Fort Wayne Moraine:
http://www.emporia.edu/earthsci/student/damery1/gl_form.html

http://www.geosci.ipfw.edu/g100fldt/g100fldt.html

So, basically my point is, that there is a lot of physical proof of the glaciers that covered the area where I live 10,000+ years ago, but absolutely zero for a global flood that supposedly happened within the past 6,000. The last link I mentioned describes things that I am extremely familiar with. This area used to be at the bottom of a shallow sea, millions of years ago.

The Wabash Railroad cut is one of the most famous rock exposures in the Midwest. It cuts right through a reef developed in the Wabash Formation. As we walk along the railroad cut, note reef flank beds dipping to either side away from the featureless reef core. This reef is one of many that developed in northern Indiana in shallow, warm seas more than 400 million years ago. At that time the ancestral North American continent sat right on the equator; northern Indiana was a tropic marine paradise–possibly something like the modern Bahamas! Preservation of the fossils of organisms that built this and other reefs in northern Indiana is usually pretty poor, due to the conversion of the original limestone of the reef rock to dolomite.

 

[Galle]

Already addressed lots of times.

Not quite. You've been confronted with these problems lots of times. You've claimed that these have been addressed lots of times. Yet you've never substantively addressed them in a way that makes sense.

There was enough room on the ark for the critters and for food -- or it is quite conceivable that the animals went into hibernation. After all, God miraculously brought the animals to the ark in the first place.

Oh really? Perhaps you could illustrate how much space was taken up by, oh, let's start with lions. Do remember that lions are carnivores and that refrigeration won't be along for a few thousand years.

As for hibernation, rather few animals hibernate. Moreover, many of the larger animals, the ones that need the greatest amount of food, care, and space, do not hibernate. Even bears don't reduce their metabolism as much as true hibernators.

And if you have to prop up your story with yet another ad-hoc miracle, you're only proving my point. If you're going to try and claim that God magically made the animals hibernate, you might as well claim that Noah just drew caricatures of animals on post-it notes which were then magically transformed into real animals upon the end of the flood. It's just as plausible.

Actually the geologic evidence is more consistent with a global flood than any other explanation.

Oh please, creationists rarely even attempt to provide an alternate explanation, let alone actually provide a "more consistent" explanation. Which strata were built in the flood? How do you explain angular unconformities? Why don't oil companies employ creationist geologists? Why can't creationists manage to publish in peer-reviewed science journals?

Already talked about.

Yet never substantively addressed, as usual.

One of the dirty little secrets is that most changes result from DNA recombination, not mutations. More and more I'm coming to understand how the Lord allowed plenty of variation - but within proscribed limits.

If macro-evolution can't occur, as many creationists contend, how many species did Noah need to take on board the Ark? If Noah simply took on a few "kinds" (a term which creationists have never bothered to usefully define), then how did all this macro-evolution occur so quickly? DNA recombination isn't going to cut it here, nor can it erase genetic bottlenecks.

You are making things up (such as these unobserved, never defined proscribed limits) in an effort to give your beliefs an appearance or science but when questions come up, you claim that you've "already talked about this". Far from "coming to understand" anything, you're making a distinct effort to prevent yourself from understanding. Furthermore, you have to invoke one ad-hoc miracle after another, making God into some sort of inept bumbler who can't plan ahead and who, every time He tries to miraculously solve one problem, creates three new ones.

 

[Galle]

Ummm, maybe because we respect Scripture more than stories?

So in other words, your beliefs are true because there are similar creation myths. But any other creation myth can't be true, because all the other creation myths which are similar are just stories.

 

[Jase]

Just a suggestion -- it is not real wise to try to judge God.

I'm not judging God, i'm judging your poorly thought out explanations for the probelms with the Global flood. While you are seemingly convinced you are right, and all the evidence points to a global flood, you are sorely mistaken. Not that you will ever believe that, so it's moot, but it's still the case. And as Galle points out, creationist coverups for the flood make God look incompetent. He can't do it an efficient way, so he has to come up with miracle after miracle to fix all the problems with the flood? Hardly the image I'm sure you want to convey. It makes no logical sense why God would do that, when he showed in Exodus he can send an Angel to wipe anything out he wants.

 

[Assyrian]

3. There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever from the fields of history, archeology, linguistics and genetics that a "global" flood ever took place within the past 6,000 years.

ummmm, no. 2 quick points -- 1)there are over 400 flood legends around the world, and

No, that is evidence from around the world of over 400 local floods. On the news yesterday there was a report of factory workers in England being cut off by a flood when a river burst its backs. They had to be rescued by firefighters driving a tractor. What do you know, more evidence of a global flood

2) it is fascinating that while supposedly man has been around for a couple of hundred thousand years, there's no archaeological evidence past a few thousand years.

We have evidence of burials and jewelry dating back 40,000 years, cave painting 32,000 years old while the Acheulean stone tool manufacturing goes back as far as a million years ago. More primitive stone tools go back further.

It is a mistake to confuse culture with writing and permanent buildings. By that definition the Lakota of North America were just ignorant savages, while in fact they had a vibrant sophisticated culture.

Art and jewelry making, burying your dead, making tools and passing these skills down to the next generation show us these people had a culture. They just didn't build towns and write about it. Until the invention of agriculture, people had to keep moving to find their food. Permanent towns would have been a place to starve.

The Bible is written as if it were global. One can say that it was only global on the basis of a primitive worldview - but you run into a major problem regarding the authority and trustworthiness of the Scriptures.

You run into a major difficulty with scripture if you ignore the way language was actually used back then and insist that the inerrant meaning is what you read into it thousands of year later through your cultural and linguistic presuppositions.

Actually, we all believe in natural selection. So what we are left with are the plants that best fit a given area from the original variety - which would be varied across the globe to start with.

Then how come foreign species can cause such problems when they are introduced into a new area? Zebra mussels in American waterways, rabbits mice and foxes and cane toads in Australia, Japanese knotweed in the USA and Europe, Rhododendron, Giant Hogweed...

Just a suggestion -- it is not real wise to try to judge God.

And your suggestion that building a boat for a local flood does not make sense is not judging God?

 

[Assyrian]

Look, when you come here you can always count on the ridiculous assertions that the Flood was not Global, when in fact it is clear from Genesis that it was GLOBAL. They love to compete in literary gymnastics and twist the Scripture to deny the Flood. They can't help themselves, and when they ask an ostensibly sincere question, as often as not it is to stand as support for rejecting the simple sense of Scripture. Then they say that the simple sense is not the simple sense, and that their convoluted twisting is the simple sense. ALL THE HIGH HILLS UNDER THE HEAVENS,

You must have missed the reply I gave to laptoppop about this, unless you are just dismissing it as 'literary gymnastics and twist the Scripture'. What I pointed out to him was:

It helps if we understand what phrases like 'under the entire heavens' meant back then.
Deut 2:25 This day I will begin to put the dread and fear of you on the peoples who are under the whole heaven, who shall hear the report of you and shall tremble and be in anguish because of you. The thing is, this did not refer to Incas Koreans and Maori, trembling at the news of the Israelites. The people 'under the whole heaven' who were terrified were Philistines, Edomites, Moabites and Canaanite. Exodus 15:14 The peoples have heard; they tremble; pangs have seized the inhabitants of Philistia. 15 Now are the chiefs of Edom dismayed; trembling seizes the leaders of Moab; all the inhabitants of Canaan have melted away. 16 Terror and dread fall upon them; because of the greatness of your arm, they are still as a stone, till your people, O LORD, pass by, till the people pass by whom you have purchased.

In Isaiah 13:5 & 17 we read about the Medes coming 'from the end of the heavens'. Isaiah 13:5They come from a distant land, from the end of the heavens, the LORD and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. They came from Persia.

'Under the whole heavens' simply means from horizon to horizon. It did not mean everywhere on the globe inside the earth's spherical atmosphere.

Shouldn't let scripture interpret scripture?

and few that is ONLY EIGHT SOULS WERE SAVED AND EVERYBODY ELSE DIED. So then the supposed natural "evidences" and supposed insurmountable problems with the simple sense force the rejection of the simple sense and the Scripture is made subject to the ABSOLUTE Conclusions of their alleged science.

Is the verse you are referring to
1Pet 3:20because they formerly did not obey, when God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is, eight persons, were brought safely through water. Because this tells us that eight people were saved from the flood, it does not tell us anything about people in other parts of the world.

Genesis tells us that apart from Noah and the others in the ark, everyone else in the land (that is what erets usually means in the OT) died. It does not tell us anything about what went on in other lands and other regions.

 

[shernren]

Some great points have already been made, with hibernation, food storage on the ark, and God being in charge.

And in the end only the point about God being in charge makes sense. God could have, I suppose, caused a global flood 4,000 years ago and then completely and utterly wiped the earth of all evidence. That is certainly within His power. But the creation ministries are claiming no such thing, and it is their scientific claims that we are discussing, not claims about God and what He could have done.

Did you forget that the bird brought back an olive branch before the ark ever landed. Vegetation was growing and no need for irrigation.

"No need for irrigation"! The problem here would not have been too little irrigation, it would have been too much! And this is relevant to me because over-irrigation is precisely what is damaging a lot of Australian agriculture. Water dissolves salt, and "overcharging" the water table brings these salts to the surface where they essentially thirst plants on the surface soil to death. Now, the whole earth being underwater for an entire year would have pretty much salinized the soil as much as it possibly could be. How that olive plant grew at all would be a very good question!

Another thing, I bet God put pregnant animals on the ark to speed the recovery, and some, like the Dinosours and dragons did not survive long after the flood.

Yet we have plenty of amphibians, reptiles and birds alive today.

The other thing is, for the sake of space and handling God most likely put very young animals on the ark (if the meat eater came on as young and the prey as older and giving birth?), those who could be fed the milk of other animals like the cow or goat for instants. The prey could have a couple litters before the lion began eating them (and some like the bears are not strictly meat eaters and there would be fish to supliment)

Firstly, this entirely ignores non-mammalian carnivores. What would the snakes have eaten? (According to creationists, evolution can only cause features to be lost and not gained. Therefore nonvenomous, noncarnivorous snakes must have evolved from the degradation of venom and predatory systems in carnivorous snakes, so that the snakes on the Ark must have been venomous and carnivorous.) Or Komodo dragons, or Gila monsters?

Secondly, even if the prey bore "a couple of litters" before the carnivores began eating them, this would not have been enough. Of the energy transferred between trophic levels, only 10% builds new biomass; it takes 10kg of herbivore to support 1kg of carnivore. Would the 300g ancestor of the cat kind have had 3kg of rabbit waiting for it as it descended?

An entirely new argument is the problem of introduced species. Introduced species are species which in their natural environment are controlled by predators that have evolved to destroy them, but which thrive beyond control when they are transferred to different environments where those predators don't exist. Now, evolution can explain why introduced species exist: natural selection in the new areas hasn't had the input required to evolve predators to the introduced species, while it has had time to evolve them in the old areas.

But how can creationism explain it? After all, according to them, all animals dispersed from Mt. Ararat. As they did, predator would have followed prey; moreover, evolution according to them would not have had the time or the ability to design novel predatory mechanisms. So either: a) introduced species cause problems because no predators have evolved to prey upon them - but predators have evolved to prey upon them in their native regions!, or b) introduced species cause problem because they were introduced to areas where their natural predators don't exist. But why should they have needed human intervention to get to those areas? Take rabbits in Australia for example: the kangaroo and the dingo got from Ararat to Australia well enough, so given the rabbit's current success in Australia, why did it need human transport instead of hitching a ride with hapless Europeans?

When all other factors run out there is the will of God which created and sustains all things.

If only the creationists infected by scientism would realize that all the other factors ran out long ago!

 

[philadiddle]

laptoppop, i admit i feel a bit sorry for you. Seems it's always 6 against 1, with you being the 1. I commend your commitment to these conversations.

Not sure offhand - if you really want to know, just check out the normal YEC sites (ICR.org, http://www.creationresearch.org/index.html, etc.)

I searched, didn't find anything, maybe you could help me (it was about where the ice age covered and for how long).

More and more I'm coming to understand how the Lord allowed plenty of variation - but within proscribed limits.

Since macro evolution is the accumulation of micro evolution, you will need to explain what it is that limits micro evolution. What is the template from which micro evolution can't stray from and how do you know the template is there?

 

[laptoppop]

laptoppop, i admit i feel a bit sorry for you. Seems it's always 6 against 1, with you being the 1. I commend your commitment to these conversations.

Thanks. It does feel like that sometimes. I've decided I'm only one guy and I'm only going to do what I can with a reasonable time commitment. I'm also trying to avoid situations where folks just want to argue and I end up repeating myself. I'm a LOT more likely to answer what seems to me to be an honest question than someone who appears to me to just want to score "points" for their side. If I don't answer something it does not mean there isn't an answer - just that I've got other things going on. In particular my work is crazy right now with a huge project.

I searched, didn't find anything, maybe you could help me (it was about where the ice age covered and for how long).

The audio summary program (about 11 minutes) below is probably the quickest best resource.

About a thousand years or so after the flood, with the max at about 700 years.

About 1/2 the surface of the earth was covered in ice and snow.
The ice sheets were located in the same areas identified by conventional geology. The extent is not in dispute, merely the timeframe.

general: http://icr.org/article/272/
most polar ice sheets in first 700 years post flood: http://icr.org/article/120/63/
Audio summary
http://www.icr.org/index.php?action=archive&f_month=&f_year=2004&module=radio
26 books related to the ice age
http://www.icr.org/store/index.php?...ries_id=20&inc_subcat=1&pfrom=&pto=&x=16&y=10

Since macro evolution is the accumulation of micro evolution, you will need to explain what it is that limits micro evolution. What is the template from which micro evolution can't stray from and how do you know the template is there?

I'm hoping to get Behe's new book tomorrow. This book looks at certain germs, like HIV, that have been studied through 10,000 generations. From the summaries/reviews, I believe it shows that there are limits to the variations that occur within an organism.

Also, there are known DNA "repair" mechanisms that kick in when DNA gets damaged, or in other words, when it varied too far from the blueprint. It appears that some of what has been called "junk" DNA may be involved in that process. http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/node/13465/print

Finally, it turns out that most variations are from recombinations, not mutations. Again, this allows rapid changes in a "kind" - but puts limits on the extent of those changes.

-lee-

 

[archaeologist]

here is a map of mesopotamia circa--close to the time of the flood. all you local flood enthusiasts, please show me how a local flood would rise 15 cubits above the mountains without draining off into the seas and also please show me how the people could not escape the deluge:

http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/map01mes.htm

your arguments need to be backed by reality and not words of unbelief.

 

[archaeologist]

also, here is a post made by a friend of mine on another forum which deals with this topic. it is quite interesting as it states the population of the world at that time would be too immense to warrant a local flood.

let's hear your opinions on this:

The Science of Mathematics

It is not certain how many years elapsed from Adam to the flood of Noah, but based on the literal interpretation which presents the shortest possible amount of time, there were 1656 years. Scientists who have studied the statistics of population growth have examined the scriptural evidence in order to estimate, the approximate population of the world destroyed by the flood. Men lived to greater age in these years and the average considerations of age at first fatherhood and average number of children per generation have been considered. The results of one such study are quoted here:

"Although it is difficult to obtain an actual value of world population at the time of the flood, 5 to17 billion people would appear to be reasonable populations, with an average of around 10 billion. The best ages for childbirth would be 80.8 to 92 years with 6 to 7 children per family. This would be 20 to 18 generations produced from Adam to the Flood in 1656. The Book of Genesis indicates (Chapter 5) that each family had at least 5 children. Adam and Eve had a total of 7 (including Abel). However, Noah apparently had only 3 children. (It is possible that he could have had sons and daughters that aren't recorded and who weren't on the ark.)" (ref: http://www.ldolphin.org/pickett.html)

Another such study conducted independently corroborated the estimate.

"Population growth was very rapid for 1656 years until the Flood of Noah reduced the population to eight persons (4 couples). I have arbitrarily chosen the population at the time of the Flood as 9 billion, though as shown above this may be too conservative. Very little data on world population is available until recent times, so a few intermediate points have been selected. I have guessed the world population at the time of Abraham at 5 million. For example there seems to be broad agreement that the world population at the time of Christ was between 200 and 300 million." (ref: http://www.ldolphin.org/popul.html)

The number of people on the earth at the time of the flood is estimated to be nearly twice the number of people living on the world today. These kinds of numbers suggest several things. If the population of 9 or 10 billion people was concentrated into the flood plain of Mesopotamia, life would have impossible as the ability to grow food, dispose of waste, and find adequate living space could not have been overcome. It can also be reasoned that any population that large would have attained to a high degree of sophistication and knowledge in order to support such numbers upon the earth.

The preflood population was scattered over the face of the earth

 

[Rut]

I have two questions about what happened after the worldwide flood.

First question, what did lions eat just after the flood? It's not just lions (or whatever wild cat was the "kind" on the ark) it's also bears, wolves, etc. There are many meat eating "kinds" of animals, but after the flood there wouldn't have been much to eat, and they couldn't eat the animals from the ark or they wouldn't have time to reproduce.

Second question. There are animals like the three toed sloth that are adapted exceptionally well to their rain forest environment. They are also very slow and have a particular diet. How did they get back to the rain forest from the mountain in the middle of a desert? What did they eat along the way? Could they even have survived the heat without dehydrating, because their bodies weren't made for desert survival.

Just wondering.

I have never thought this thoughts

I find this in one website


Genesis 9 marks a major transition in ecological dynamics: 1. it indicates that disruption in the harmonious relationship between humanity and animals arose only after the flood;
2. that man became a carnivore (or substantially more so) at this time.
3. It is also clear that animals were predatory on humanity from this point on (cf. Gen 37.20 et. al).
4. Also, the animals were 'changed' at this time-- they were given at least "avoidance" adaptations ("fear" of humans) and "attack" adaptations (i.e., they were now able to kill humans). If the attack adaptation included a desire to kill humans for energy consumption, then this would likely include a generalized appetite for highly concentrated energy (i.e., meat). And, if the avoidance adaptation included additional mobility enhancements (i.e., speed), then caloric intake requirements would have increased as well, requiring highly concentrated energy sources also.
5. Also, there might also have been modifications for enhanced reproduction (i.e., "breed abundantly"), given the new world of predation, requiring yet more caloric intake.
6. The ecological resource base would probably have changed as well. Depending on how you understand the Flood geo-dynamics, one understanding is that the surface of the earth was much greater at the time, with much of today's ocean water content being below that surface (Gen 7.11: "all the fountains of the great deep"). If this is the case, then the ecological resource base would have greatly constricted, creating biological competition previously unknown to the animal and plant kingdoms. Again, adaptations could have been triggered by God to balance out the odds for the various ecological community member groups, to insure the surviving (and even thriving) of biodiversity at adequate levels to support stable plant and animal populations. 7. Similarly, if part of the flood waters came in the form of torrential rain, then the earth would have been enveloped in a "thermal blanket" before the Flood. This would have generated a greenhouse environment even in areas close to the Polar areas. (This can be easily verified by a study of the mammoths of Siberia. The specimens of those that are preserved were quick-frozen in the act of eating, as would likely have occurred if the thermal blanket had been suddenly punctured. The stomach contents of these mammals contained food elements such as herbs, grasses, and mosses, some of which only grow in temperate areas. [NS:IMM:98-100]). After the destruction of the thermal canopy, much of the land mass of the world would have become less hospitable to life, and the winter seasons would have become more bio-problematic as well. Since predation occurs at higher frequency during the winter months and at colder climes, this factor may also have stimulated the need for predation (to preserve biodiversity and community balance).


You can maybe find some answer on you second question here
http://www.christiananswers.net/q-aig/aig-c006.html

 

[Jase]

here is a map of mesopotamia circa--close to the time of the flood. all you local flood enthusiasts, please show me how a local flood would rise 15 cubits above the mountains without draining off into the seas and also please show me how the people could not escape the deluge:

http://www.fsmitha.com/h1/map01mes.htm

your arguments need to be backed by reality and not words of unbelief.

Reality contradicts a global flood as well, so what do you propose if neither scenario is valid?

 

[plainswolf]

So waving his finger, and making all the "corrupted" people disappear was too difficult, he had to resort to massive, illogical miracles to flood the Earth and have his entire creation inhale water to end the corruption?

On a side note - There's actually a theology to this. In the beginning of creation, remember that the waters covered the face of the earth and the spirit of God hovered over the water, then the separation of waters from land, etc..

Then the earth became corrupt, its stench reaching up to heaven. (If something stinks, you wash it) So now He mingles them back together again so the world is returned to its pre-creation state: the whole earth is once again covered in water.. then soon onward we have a dove hovering over the waters.. and again a separation of the waters from land. (The next time in Scripture we see a dove hovering over water is the Baptism of Christ).

Seems awfully inefficient for an omnipotent being.

Well, for that matter so is evolution.



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