Global Flood

[TasManOfGod]

There was a quotation from Bender on Futurama which something like "The idea of an afterlife? If I thought there was a whole other life after this one, I'd kill myself right now."

Actually if you live this one to the maximum available you are sure to enjoy the next one also. This one is like a practice run. (Note: It is advisable to have God help you enjoy this one)

 

[Baggins]

Whether or not you want to cease to exist is not in your hands unfortunately as was how you were created and whether there was a flood of Noah or not

Whether we cease to exist is not in my hands, but it seems probable to me that we will, there is no evidence to the contrary beyond the wishful thinking of generations of humans terrified of death..

But I imagine neither of us will be very suprised when we die, because we will lack the capacity for suprise seeing as we will have ceased to exist. If believing in ever lasting life assuages your fear and allows you live then good for you, I am able to function without ignoring the fact that death is the end.

But how we were created is our hands the evidence of our evolutionary pathway is written in our genes and is there in the fossil record for any with the wit to read them.

And whether or not there was a noachian flood is even more in my hands, as a geologist I have ample proof that it did not happen, and by talking to physicists we have ample proof that it could not happen, so I'm afraid you are wrong on those counts.

Every day of my working life is evidence that Noah's flood never happened, just because it is a fairy story you are particularly attached to doesn't change that fact.

 

[TasManOfGod]

Whether we cease to exist is not in my hands, but it seems probable to me that we will, there is no evidence to the contrary beyond the wishful thinking of generations of humans terrified of death..

But I imagine neither of us will be very suprised when we die, because we will lack the capacity for suprise seeing as we will have ceased to exist. If believing in ever lasting life assuages your fear and allows you live then good for you, I am able to function without ignoring the fact that death is the end.

But how we were created is our hands the evidence of our evolutionary pathway is written in our genes and is there in the fossil record for any with the wit to read them.

And whether or not there was a noachian flood is even more in my hands, as a geologist I have ample proof that it did not happen, and by talking to physicists we have ample proof that it could not happen, so I'm afraid you are wrong on those counts.

Every day of my working life is evidence that Noah's flood never happened, just because it is a fairy story you are particularly attached to doesn't change that fact.

Well you can never blame believers for not trying to have you receive what is rightfully yours.

 

[DArceri]

I'm happy to see that all atheists think they are omniscient. Good luck.

 

[abcOfChristianity]

A good thread. Sometimes I feel as though Christians think that the Jewish history is the ONLY history. Ignorance is never bliss...

 

[Baggins]

Well you can never blame believers for not trying to have you receive what is rightfully yours.

NO I cannot weather they be Mormons, Anglicans or followers of the Flying Spaghetti Monster I always thank them for wasting their time on an unbeliever like me.

 

[Baggins]

I'm happy to see that all atheists think they are omniscient. Good luck.

I can't remember claiming to be omniscient, me stating what I believe happens after death is no worse than a christian stating what he believes happens after death is it, we both have zero evidence.

And as for geology, I wouldn't claim that I am omniscient, just that I know vastly more about it than either you or Tasman so I am in a much better position to state that there was no flood than either of you are to claim that there was.

Good luck to you as well

 

[Elduran]

I'm happy to see that all atheists think they are omniscient. Good luck.

We do? Hmmm, I wasn't told this

 

[lemmings]

I'm happy to see that all atheists think they are omniscient. Good luck.

Dangit! All this time I have just been a student in my classes when I realy could have been the teacher.

 

[DArceri]

I can't remember claiming to be omniscient, me stating what I believe happens after death is no worse than a christian stating what he believes happens after death is it, we both have zero evidence.

And as for geology, I wouldn't claim that I am omniscient, just that I know vastly more about it than either you or Tasman so I am in a much better position to state that there was no flood than either of you are to claim that there was.

Good luck to you as well

Just want to understand a few things. If God didn't created the universe, then how do you explain the existance of the universe without claimiing it was always there?

Also:

1. Where did the space for the universe come from?
2. Where did matter come from?
3. Where did the laws of the universe come from (gravity, inertia, etc.)?
4. How did matter get so perfectly organized?
5. Where did the energy come from to do all the organizing?
6. When, where, why, and how did life come from non-living matter?
7. When, where, why, and how did life learn to reproduce itself?
8. With what did the first cell capable of sexual reproduction reproduce?

 

[Elduran]

Just want to understand a few things. If God didn't created the universe, then how do you explain the existance of the universe without claimiing it was always there?

Personally I don't. I see evidence that the universe expanded from a singularity, but I don't know much about the reasons for that expansion, or even if any exist.

Also:

1. Where did the space for the universe come from?
2. Where did matter come from?
3. Where did the laws of the universe come from (gravity, inertia, etc.)?
4. How did matter get so perfectly organized?
5. Where did the energy come from to do all the organizing?
6. When, where, why, and how did life come from non-living matter?
7. When, where, why, and how did life learn to reproduce itself?
8. With what did the first cell capable of sexual reproduction reproduce?

1. Space is a property of the universe, not something necessary for the universe to exist.
2. From the after-effects of the big bang if I remember correctly.
3. These are just the way that things interact within the universe. They are properties of the universe, nothing more, nothing less. For all I know they might be the only way things could possibly be within a universe such as ours.
4. It isn't perfectly organised. Matter is scattered throughout the universe in clumps that are held together by gravity (and other forces at the micro scale), and I have difficulty seeing that as perfectly organised by any stretch of the imagination.
5. Total potential energy is usually minimised when something happens naturally. Whether this is gravitational, electrical, chemical, etc. Plus of course this assumes that matter is organised...
6. When: ball park figure of about 3.9 billion years ago for this planet's first life forms if I remember my abiogenesis facts ok. Where: who knows, possibly Earth, possibly elsewhere. Why: just because (see minimising potential energy above). How: Chemistry.
7. Molecules were probably self-replicating before life began. This is again just chemistry, if a little more complicated than what most people know of chemistry!
8. Cells don't reproduce sexually as far as I'm aware, but partial transfer of DNA across a membrane between simple life forms isn't too difficult to consider, so the question is actually a little poorly phrased, as it seems to assume that either you have fully asexual or fully sexual reproduction, rather than the spectrum of possiblilities.

 

[DArceri]

Personally I don't. I see evidence that the universe expanded from a singularity, but I don't know much about the reasons for that expansion, or even if any exist.

1. Space is a property of the universe, not something necessary for the universe to exist.
2. From the after-effects of the big bang if I remember correctly.
3. These are just the way that things interact within the universe. They are properties of the universe, nothing more, nothing less. For all I know they might be the only way things could possibly be within a universe such as ours.
4. It isn't perfectly organised. Matter is scattered throughout the universe in clumps that are held together by gravity (and other forces at the micro scale), and I have difficulty seeing that as perfectly organised by any stretch of the imagination.
5. Total potential energy is usually minimised when something happens naturally. Whether this is gravitational, electrical, chemical, etc. Plus of course this assumes that matter is organised...
6. When: ball park figure of about 3.9 billion years ago for this planet's first life forms if I remember my abiogenesis facts ok. Where: who knows, possibly Earth, possibly elsewhere. Why: just because (see minimising potential energy above). How: Chemistry.
7. Molecules were probably self-replicating before life began. This is again just chemistry, if a little more complicated than what most people know of chemistry!
8. Cells don't reproduce sexually as far as I'm aware, but partial transfer of DNA across a membrane between simple life forms isn't too difficult to consider, so the question is actually a little poorly phrased, as it seems to assume that either you have fully asexual or fully sexual reproduction, rather than the spectrum of possiblilities.

I notice you use the terms, "probably", "who knows", "just because", "as far as I am aware", "possibly",...

A few more thoughts:

1. All planetary rings still exhibit intricacies which Should Have long ago disappeared.
2. All known comets burn up their material with each pass around the sun and Should Have a maximum life expectancy of 100,000 years.
3. The outer solar system planets should have long ago cooled off.
4. The spiral galaxies Should Have long ago unspiraled, and the uneven dispersion of matter in the universe Should Have long ago dispersed.

Scientists working from the preconception that the universe is 10-20 billion years old have suggested controversial and complicated possibilities for how these types of transient phenomena could still exist but their explanations are based more on faith, not science.


Note: I am pulling these questions from a Creation Science website.

 

[Battie]

Threads like this are an example of just how damaging to the story an unfounded literal interpretation can be.

Let's all pretend we're ancient Hebrews for a moment:

The world is flat. Above us all is the dome of the sky holding back the great ocean of heaven. Like the Canaanite's Baal, God controls the windows in the dome, bringing rain when it is needed and keeping the waters from destroying everyone.

He did in once, in the time of Noah. He destroyed the whole world with water. But even though humanity continues to be wicked He promises never to do it again. Nothing is more terrifying to the Ancient Near Easterns than water disasters. That is why there are so many myths dealing with water.

Many of you have argued that God is cruel for destroying innocent lives in the flood, and I'd agree with you if that's what really happened. But myths like this one aren't supposed to be analyzed like that. The point is that the world was wicked but Noah was not, so God had mercy on Noah.

Compare this with the Sumerian flood myth, in which the gods destroy the earth for no apparent reason (saving only Utnapishtim and his family). The Hebrews showed that their God is just in that He flooded the earth and destroyed the wicked for a reason.

All this is lost when we try to look at the story as history.

 

[DArceri]

GETTING BACK TO THE FLOOD:

The majority of the geologic community believe that low energy processes and long time periods account for the geologic record. Creationists believe that high energy processes and short periods of time account for the geologic record.

PLEASE READ THESE TWO ACCOUNTS:

Mt. St. Helens Explosion Gives Creation Evidence
http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=7

The Grand Canyon, Things That Make Evolutionists Look Stupid
http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=95



P.S. I am not a Geologist.... Just throwing out some thought-provoking questions out here...

 

[Baggins]

Just want to understand a few things. If God didn't created the universe, then how do you explain the existance of the universe without claimiing it was always there?

Why would you think I assume it wasn't always there? There is a rational hypothesis that the universe expands and contracts continually. There are also arguments that our universe is just an outgrowth of a pre-existing universe and so on ad infinitum.

You can turn that question round and say if you assume that you need a god to create the universe then what created the god? And if god didn't need to be created by something else then why does the universe?

Saying that the universe must have been created but god didn't need to be is just special pleading.

Also:

1. Where did the space for the universe come from?

The universe isn't expanding into anything, it is space it isn't expanding into space.

1. Where did matter come from?

The matter always existed either as matter or energy within the universe.

I have to point out at this point that I dropped out of physics aged 16, and apart from a half course in astronomy at University, I have steered well clear of astrophysics ever since, so I am fully prepared to be corrected.

1. Where did the laws of the universe come from (gravity, inertia, etc.)?

They are inherent in the actions of the universe, the universe must have some laws and the ones that we have are the ones that this universe happens to have.

1. How did matter get so perfectly organized?

Gravity

1. Where did the energy come from to do all the organizing?

It has always been in the iniverse since it inception, like the matter, it didn't come from anywhere.

1. When, where, why, and how did life come from non-living matter?

On earth? Around about 4 billion years ago. We can find evidence of simple cells back to 3.8 billion years ago, and we know that the world took a few hundred million years to become stable enough to develope life and for the bombardment of meteorites to slaken off to a level that would allow life to develope. From the fossil record it appears that life developed on earth as soon as practically possible.

As to where, I have no idea where on earth the first life forms developed.

As to why, because self replicating organisms started to organize themselves into cells .

an as to how, well we are all at our basic level just a mass of chemical reactions, when those chemical reactions start to self organize and reproduce we call them life. It is all a matter of degree.

What makes the difference between a set of chemical reactions that are not living, and a set that are living?

Perhaps we can say life started when natural selection started to act on replicating molecules within self contained structures.

1. When, where, why, and how did life learn to reproduce itself?

AS soon as it started, I don't think you can have life without reproduction, all you have then is chemical reactions. Once they reproduce natural selection can act on them then they are a life form.

1. With what did the first cell capable of sexual reproduction reproduce?

Gametes

 

[DArceri]

From the fossil record it appears that life developed on earth as soon as practically possible.

As to where, I have no idea where on earth the first life forms developed.

As to why, because self replicating organisms started to organize themselves into cells .

Do you really believe life formed from non-living material? And the universe could be eternally passed down?

There are also arguments that our universe is just an outgrowth of a pre-existing universe and so on ad infinitum.

If you believe in eternality, what is so hard to believe that there is an eternal being, GOD, who started it?

 

[Baggins]

I notice you use the terms, "probably", "who knows", "just because", "as far as I am aware", "possibly",...

This is because were are speculating about things we are not experts on, but since you asked we will give it our best shot. Some things are facts, like the earliest dates for evidence of life on earth.

1. All planetary rings still exhibit intricacies which Should Have long ago disappeared.

Why. have you any evidence that this is so?

1. All known comets burn up their material with each pass around the sun and Should Have a maximum life expectancy of 100,000 years.

Perhaps new comets come in from outside our solar system. Why don't you investigate this, I'm sure there is a reason for this. It might have to do with comets coming from belts of debris that exist along way from the sun.

1. The outer solar system planets should have long ago cooled off.

Cooled off to what?

1. The spiral galaxies Should Have long ago unspiraled, and the uneven dispersion of matter in the universe Should Have long ago dispersed.

Have you any evidence as to why this should be so?

Scientists working from the preconception that the universe is 10-20 billion years old have suggested controversial and complicated possibilities for how these types of transient phenomena could still exist but their explanations are based more on faith, not science.

I think you'll find that is the wrong way round their explanations are based on evidence not on faith,.

You may not be very familiar with evidence coming from a tradition where faith is all, but in science it is generally assumed that we get the evidence first .

Note: I am pulling these questions from a Creation Science website.

You don't suprise me it had the air of a PRATT list ( Point Refuted A Thousand Times ) about it.

In that case the answesr to all your questions will be here:


http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/

in fact here is the refutation of your comets point:

Claim CE261:

Comets lose material as they near the sun. If the solar system were very old, comets would long ago have evaporated. Source:

Velikovsky, Immanuel, 1955. Earth in Upheaval. New York: Pocket Books, pp. 261-262.
Response:

1. The comets that entered the inner solar system a very long time ago indeed have evaporated. However, new comets enter the inner solar system from time to time. The Oort Cloud and Kuiper Belt hold many comets deep in space, beyond the orbit of Neptune, where they do not evaporate. Occasionally, gravitational perturbations from other comets bump one of them into a highly elliptical orbit, which causes it to near the sun.

Links:

Matson, Dave E., 1994. How good are those young-earth arguments? http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea.html#proof3 Further Reading:

Jewitt, David, n.d. Kuiper Belt. http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~jewitt/kb.html

Here is refutation of your unspiralling galaxies point:
Claim CE380:

Stars closer to the center of a spiral galaxy orbit the galaxy faster than stars farther away. Over many millions of years, the difference in orbital rates should wind the spiral tighter and tighter. We do not see any evidence for this in galaxies of different ages. Source:

Corliss, William R., 1988. Why do spiral galaxies stay that way? or do they? Science Frontiers Online 55 (Jan-Feb). http://www.science-frontiers.com/sf055/sf055p07.htm
Response:

1. Spiral arms are density waves, which, like sound in air, travel through the galaxy's disk, causing a piling-up of stars and gas at the crests of the waves. In some galaxies, the central bulge reflects the wave, giving rise to a giant standing spiral wave with a uniform rotation rate and a lifetime of about one or two billion years.
   
   The causes of the density waves are still not known, but there are many possibilities. Tidal effects from a neighboring galaxy probably cause some of them.
   
   The spiral pattern is energetically favorable. Spiral configurations develop spontaneously in computer simulations based on gravitational dynamics (Carlberg et al. 1999).

Links:

Carlberg, Ray, Debra M. Elmegreen, Bruce G. Elmegreen, Jerry Sellwood and William Lee Bell. 1999. Ask the experts: Astronomy: What process creates and maintains the beautiful spiral arms around spiral galaxies? http://www.sciam.com/askexpert_question.cfm?articleID=0008A68A-8C7F-1C72-9EB7809EC588F2D7 References:

1. Carlberg et al. 1999. (see above).

Here is the refutation to your outer planets are too cool point:

Claim CE231:

Jupiter and Saturn are cooling, giving off their internal heat at a rate too great for them to be billions of years old. Source:

Brown, Walt. 1995. In the Beginning: Compelling evidence for creation and the Flood. Phoenix, AZ: Center for Scientific Creation, p. 30.
Response:

1. Jupiter is cooling slowly enough that it could still be radiating its primordial heat. Saturn's extra heat could come from gravitational potential energy as helium in its atmosphere condenses into droplets and falls toward the center.

Links:

Matson, Dave E. 1994. How good are those young-earth arguments? http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea.html#proof10

And here is the refutation of your point about saturn's rings:
Claim CE240:

Saturn's rings are unstable. They gradually drift outward, and disruption from bombardment could mean that they could not last more than 10,000 years. The rings cannot be billions of years old. Source:

Ackerman, Paul D, 1986. It's a Young World After All. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, p. 45. Cited in Hovind, Kent, n.d. Universe is not "billions of years" old. http://www.drdino.com/QandA/index.j...n&varPage=UniverseIsNotBillionsofYearsOld.jsp
Brown, Walt, 1995. In the Beginning: Compelling evidence for creation and the flood. Phoenix, AZ: Center for Scientific Creation, p. 29.
Response:

1. Saturn's rings may be less than 100 million years old (Cuzzi and Estrada 1998). However, that says nothing about the age of the planet. The rings could have formed when Saturn captured a small moon that fell within the Roche limit (the distance below which moons will be pulled apart by tidal forces). This could have happened any time in Saturn's history.
2. Saturn's moons shepherd the particles that make up the rings, preventing them from drifting and maintaining the gaps between the rings. This shepherding may allow the rings to be much older than 100 million years. (However, the color of the rings suggests not much more than 100 million years' worth of accumulated dust.)

Links:

Thompson, Tim, n.d. Answers in Genesis and Saturn's rings. http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/aig_and_saturn's_rings.htm

Matson, Dave E., 1994. How good are those young-earth arguments? http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea.html#proof9 References:

1. Cuzzi, J. N. and P. R. Estrada, 1998. Compositional evolution of Saturn's rings due to meteoroid bombardment. Icarus 132(1): 1-35.

Further Reading:

Sobel, Dava, 1994. Secrets of the rings. Discover 15 (Apr.): 86-91.

I hope all this helps you.

But you could have looked into these topics yourself.

I sugest you book mark the Talkorigins site and next time you come across a list of plausible creationist arguments, you check there to see if they have been refuted.

 

[Baggins]

GETTING BACK TO THE FLOOD:

The majority of the geologic community believe that low energy processes and long time periods account for the geologic record. Creationists believe that high energy processes and short periods of time account for the geologic record.

PLEASE READ THESE TWO ACCOUNTS:

Mt. St. Helens Explosion Gives Creation Evidence
http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=7

The Grand Canyon, Things That Make Evolutionists Look Stupid
http://www.drdino.com/articles.php?spec=95



P.S. I am not a Geologist.... Just throwing out some thought-provoking questions out here...

I am a geologist

I won't read the links as I have read many like them in my time and I am fairly busy at the moment.

But I imagine the the St Helens link will be about the speed of laying down sedimentary layers. This ignores the factthat a volcanic eruption is a special case and that it is easy to spot these types of rocks in the sedimentary column and they are not that common.

The Grand Canyon thing will start by saying that it was carved out by receeding flood water, but it won't explain why there aren't grand canyons all over the world, how if the sediments were soft and unlithified the canyon walls could be stabe at 100s of feet high and how the canyon is able to turn through bends of 180 degrees if flood waters carved it.

Neither will they explain, cogentlu, where all this extra water came from and where it went.

Finally they may then say that the Colorado river delta doesn't have enough sediment in it to be from long erosion of the grand canyon.

This is refuted here.
Claim CD210:

There is nowhere near enough sediment deposited at the mouth of the Colorado River to account for ten million years worth of erosion. Response:

1. The Colorado River delta itself is quite extensive. It covers 3,325 square miles (Sykes 1937) and is up to 3.5 miles deep (Jennings and Thompson 1986), containing over 10,000 cubic miles of the Colorado River's sediments from the last two to three million years. The sediments that were deposited by the river more than two to three million years ago have been shifted northwestward by movement along the San Andreas and related faults (Winker and Kidwell 1986). Sediments have also accumulated elsewhere. Some were deposited in flood plains between the delta and the Grand Canyon.
2. Wind is a major erosional force in parts of the Colorado River basin. Some sediments from Colorado and Wyoming were blown as far as the Atlantic Ocean.
3. Much of the strata exposed in the Grand Canyon are limestone and dolomite. These rocks eventually simply would have dissolved.

Links:

Littleton, Keith, 1998 (11 May). Re: Colorado Delta Missing? Message ID <6j865m$5q0$1@ralph.vnet.net>, http://www.google.com/groups?as_umsgid=6j865m$5q0$1@ralph.vnet.net References:

1. Jennings, S. and G. R. Thompson, 1986. Diagensis of Plio-Pleistocene sediments of the Colorado River Delta, southern California. Journal of Sedimentary Petrology 56(1): 89-98.
2. Sykes, G., 1937. The Colorado River Delta. American Geographical Society Special Publication 19, New York: American Geographical Society.
3. Winker, C. D. and S. M. Kidwell, 1986. Paleocurrent evidence for lateral displacement of the Pliocene Colorado River Delta by the San Andreas fault system, southeastern California. Geology 14(9): 788-791.

 

[Baggins]

Do you really believe life formed from non-living material?

You are formed from non-living material so why shouldn't early life be.

And the universe could be eternally passed down?

I have no idea about that, I was just speculating. I am agnostic about the origins of the universe, but I suspect that god is not neede in that equation.

If you believe in eternality, what is so hard to believe that there is an eternal being, GOD, who started it?

Why does a universe need a god to start it, but a god doesn't need anything to start it?

 

[DArceri]

One thing I do know, evidence does not equate to proof. Evidence is just pieces of a complex puzzle that scientist try to fit into the mode of their reality to justify an existence without a supernatural being. But my evidence of God is existence itself. God created the formulas for the mind and soul itself. Life is just a small part of it.