Are tectonic plates another one of God's cosmic deceptions?

Fascinated With God · Jan 31, 2013

Most children playing with a globe notice that the east coast of South America lines up remarkably with the west coast of Africa. Geologists first noticed 100 years ago that the two coast lines not only look similar, but also have matching rock formations as well as matching fossil deposits of the plants Glossopteris and Gangamopteris.

So how do you YEC folks explain this away?

.

ChristianT · Jan 31, 2013

that is a good point! I can't wait to see the responses; perhaps a desire for "order", "symmetry", or whatnot.

hiscosmicgoldfish · Jan 31, 2013

Fascinated With God said:
Ugh, I failed to put the word "plates" after tectonic. (I have dyslexia...)

Most children playing with a globe notice that the east coast of South America lines up remarkably with the west coast of Africa. Geologists first noticed 100 years ago that the two coast lines not only look similar, but also have matching rock formations as well as matching fossil deposits of the plants Glossopteris and Gangamopteris.

So how do you YEC folks explain this away?

.

don't they say that it happened quickly? Kent Hovind said that it's not like the continents are floating on top like pond lillies.

ChristianT · Jan 31, 2013

hiscosmicgoldfish said:
don't they say that it happened quickly? Kent Hovind said that it's not like the continents are floating on top like pond lillies.

Why don't we see any more drastic continent shifts?

troodon · Jan 31, 2013

Well if I were to put on my devil's advocate YEC hat, I would make the following points.

Shape of the continents isn't very strong evidence for much of anything. It was intriguing and compelled scientists to ask whether there was a cause for it, but it could well be just a coincidence. Italy does look like a boot, afterall.

Common fossil flora and fauna, including Lystrosaurus which was another one of the genera used as early evidence for continental drift, could come from pre-flood distributions. Obviously God originally seeded the earth with life and he may well have seeded both hemispheres with common organisms.

Similar geologic formations is trickier. I suppose that for igneous provinces a YEC may say that they were made by God as bedrock for the earth's surface. The surface of the earth had to have some kind of a rocky top, afterall.

For sedimentary formations one of the main tools we use for correlation is fossil assemblages, and YECs conveniently never, ever talk about fossil assemblages. I mean never. I've tried to bring it up to YECs on this site and all you get is silence. Apparently they won't even acknowledge their existence, like if I completely ignored a son-in-law that I didn't like. So they'd probably just say that you can draw similarities between sedimentary formations all over the world that "evolutionists" don't believe are connected, and that's the case here.

InSpiritInTruth · Jan 31, 2013

Genesis 1:9
And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.

In the beginning the waters were gathered together unto one place, which also means the dry land would have also been gathered together in one place.

So when did the single land mass break up? It was broken up during the great flood (Gen 7:11) "and the fountains of the great deep broken up"

So not only were the heavens opened up and pouring down rain, but also the earth was opened up, and broken up by the fountains of the deep.

Fascinated With God · Jan 31, 2013

InSpiritInTruth said:
So not only were the heavens opened up and pouring down rain, but also the earth was opened up, and broken up by the fountains of the deep.

Do you realize how thin the Earth's crust is?! If that had happened the Earth would have been peeled like grape with nothing but exposed magma left.

Your theory here is pretty much identical to the "pole reversal" conspiracy theoriests who think the Earth acctually flipped 180% degrees. Same problem, if that had happened the Earth's crust would have been peeled off like a peeled grape.

InSpiritInTruth · Jan 31, 2013

Fascinated With God said:
Do you realize how thin the Earth's crust is?! If that had happened the Earth would have been peeled like grape with nothing but exposed magma left.

Your theory here is pretty much identical to the "pole reversal" conspiracy theoriests who think the Earth acctually flipped 180% degrees. Same problem, if that had happened the Earth's crust would have been peeled off like a peeled grape.

I believe the Word of God is true. And yes I would imagine the flood event in the Bible to be a very violent and catastrophic event. But peeling the earth like a grape would only be a speculation on ones part.

troodon · Jan 31, 2013

Fascinated With God makes a good point, fracturing and displacing the crust in the manner you're describing would create a LOT of magma by means of depressurization. This would result in a tremendous amount of volcanism.

InSpiritInTruth · Jan 31, 2013

troodon said:
Fascinated With God makes a good point, fracturing and displacing the crust in the manner you're describing would create a LOT of magma by means of depressurization. This would result in a tremendous amount of volcanism.

Then add a bunch of water to the mix and you could imagine how violant the destruction would have been.

Fascinated With God · Jan 31, 2013

There is no evidence of such an event. Not even the enormous comet impact 65 million years ago had anything like that kind of effect. No life would be possible after such an event.

InSpiritInTruth · Jan 31, 2013

Fascinated With God said:
No life would be possible after such an event.

That was the plan.

Genesis 6:13
And God said unto Noah, The end of all flesh is come before me; for the earth is filled with violence through them; and, behold, I will destroy them with the earth.

Only those in the ark survived.

Fascinated With God · Jan 31, 2013

You don't seem to understand the meaning of "no life". The atomsphere would be filled with poison gas and there would be no land or sea, only molten magma.

InSpiritInTruth · Jan 31, 2013

Fascinated With God said:
You don't seem to understand the meaning of "no life". The atomsphere would be filled with poison gas and there would be no land or sea, only molten magma.

Or one could have faith in what God said was true.

Genesis 7:21-24

King James Version (KJV)

21 And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man:
22 All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.
23 And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.
24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth an hundred and fifty days.

Look no molten magma, only water.

Fascinated With God · Jan 31, 2013

That is consistent with a medium sized comet impact in the ocean which would shoot an enormous amount of vaporized water into the upper atmosphere producing weeks of unending torrential rain and a mega-tsunami all around the ocean it hit. World myths are consistent with this, the worst flood myths are all around the Indian Ocean, even though less pervasive flood myths are universal to all cultures.

That is TOTALLY different from what you are talking about. Rapidly shifting the plates in the manner that you describe would simply rip them off completely, water and all.

As to faith, having a comic book fairy tale interpretation of the first two chapters of Genesis hardly makes your faith stronger than mine. My faith is based on reality, a God that is REAL, not a comic book fantasy.

I understand that the awesome time scales that God works on makes you feel insecure. You want to reduce God to manageable size, something that you can wrap your mind around. But I accept God's creation as He intended it to be accepted, in all the full glory of the awesome timescale in which God created the universe.

InSpiritInTruth · Jan 31, 2013

Luke 4:4
And Jesus answered him, saying, It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.

It's all, or nothing.

ChetSinger · Jan 31, 2013

Fascinated With God said:
So how do you YEC folks explain this away?

It's not explained away. creation.com has probably hundreds of pages where they discuss the effects of a global flood, including continental separation, severe volcanism, the creation of mountain ranges, etc. This is one of the subjects most-researched by YECs. I've even been challenged by atheists regarding particular rock formations, and found articles addressing those particular formations on creation.com.

I'm not going to participate in this thread because I have neither qualifications nor much interest in geology. But the resources on that site, in particular, are vast, and if anyone has a question regarding the YEC position on the Flood and its effects, I suggest looking there for articles.

Afaik the Bible doesn't say whether or not the continents were separated during the Flood. But it does say everything was destroyed. We choose to either believe it, or not.

troodon · Jan 31, 2013

Here is the relevant page from creation.com where they present an argument both for and against "catastrophic plate tectonics". I have not read it.

SkyWriting · Feb 1, 2013

troodon said:
For sedimentary formations one of the main tools we use for correlation is fossil assemblages, and YECs conveniently never, ever talk about fossil assemblages. I mean never.

Ken Ham likes to mention fossil sorting with the little ones near the bottom.
I never understood how he keeps a straight face when offering that.
http://www.icr.org/invertebrates/
But back to the topic:

http://www.icr.org/article/catastrophic-plate-tectonics-flood-model/

Fascinated With God · Feb 1, 2013

InSpiritInTruth said:
It's all, or nothing.

It is either all literal or all allegorical? So you don't think there is any possible room at all between these two possibilities? Only problem is, your supposed alternate doesn't exist

What you have left is 3000+ denominations, bar FAR the most fragmented religion on Earth. And from that basis you conclude that your religion only leaves two possibilities open?

Are tectonic plates another one of God's cosmic deceptions?

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