If the flood of Noah was only local...

I do believe in evolution, but it depends on what you mean by the word. And it's not super hyper evolution. With a huge climate change like the one after the flood it wouldn't take long for the animals to diverge and adapt several times. I don't want to get into evolution, I just want to know what the scriptures that we have today say.

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Climate change? Now you're reading into the Scriptures, instead of reading what they really say. Regardless of climate change, a few "kinds" cannot diverge into millions of species that fast.

Please explain what caused the earth to be broken up with cracks and what geology says about the Grand Canyon (I believe it has been disproven that the Colorado river formed it over many years)

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The cooling and cycling of magma. Erosion by the river combined with the movement of the plates. Hasn't been disproven that I know of.

Are you talking about the Behemoth? I believe it was referring to a dinosaur with a huge tail.

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As long as you're aware that that is only your opinion.

The tree had 120 days to grow after the flood. I've been taught this if it is unscriptural please point it out to me and I will check it out.

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No, it didn't. Read the story again. Regardless, 120 days is not enough for an olive tree to grow.

It seems to me that based on all the wild ideas you're putting forth, you are reading much more into the Scriptures than what they really say. No oceans, climate changes, hyper-evolution...

It's easy to see how it could be taken as a local flood if you put aside your modernist newspaper account reading and see how poetic language is used. I can say that I "stood on a mountain and surveyed all the earth." Does that mean that I literally saw the whole globe, or just what was visible from the mountain?

When the Bible says that the Earth is supported on pillars or that God opens windows to let the rain down do you similarly believe "what it says?" Of course not -- the Bible is full of colorful imagery and you allow what you know of the universe to instruct your interpretation of scripture.

Those who have told you the Grand Canyon was created in a quick period of time are flat wrong. They probably told you it was cut in soft mud and very soft rock right? Well no soft sedementation can cut mile-long meanders in it's path. There are dozens of meanders in the Colorado River.

There's no feature in the Grand Canyon that is not consistant with very slow erosion, but that's probably enough content for a whole new thread.

Why not? in 4,400 years plenty of variations will occur. And even if you prove your point, it's not what I'm trying to discuss here.

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Not that many. And, it is very pertinent to what you want to discuss. You are reading things into the story that are not there.

You should watch Kent Hovinds Lies in the Textbooks DVDI believe it is available online.

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Uh huh, like I'm going to believe anything that Hovind, a proven liar with no science education, says above the word of specialists who have worked in the field for a long time and publish their evidence, along with methods, assumptions, and conclusions.

A global flood would leave massive amounts of water behind. If you don't believe the climate would change then that's your opinion. and I don't know what you mean by hyper evolution. It's just variations over the past 4,400 years.

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Variations at a rate of which is not even conceived of by evolutionary scientists.

I see what you mean but it just doesn't compare. I mean, I feel the scriptures are clear on what it states. I would feel like I'm denying the obvious if I try to put it any other way.

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It does compare. Whoever told the story would have been telling what he experienced, without any knowledge of modern science. I agree, the Scripture is very clear in what it says. But then, I read a lot of literature and consider poetic language to be clear.

and I don't know what you mean by hyper evolution. It's just variations over the past 4,400 years.

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To account for the divergence in the genome of horses worldwide would take hundreds of times faster mutation rates than have ever been observed.

As for Hovind, I'm afraid he stands alone -- no other major creationist organization supports him and a number have come out flatly countering him as a fraud. If you want to talk about specific points, I'd love to go into detail with you (espcially if it involves geology or physics) but as a start you might check out some of the videos on youtube that go through his videos point-by-point.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=TNZCcTcOPV0

If you're truly interested in the truth and not just holding your position because you're comfortable with your interpretation of scriptures, you might investigate why most of his claims are rejected by all other creationist organizations.

Something else to ponder:

In Romans 1:8 Paul writes this:
Let me say first of all that your faith in God is becoming known throughout the world.

Does this mean that from Paul's 1st century AD perspective that people in Australia and North and South America were included in this?

The clear answer is no. During Paul's missionary travels, his 'world' was the the Roman world known at that time, as evidenced where the churches were planted.

How does a large wind dry the planet from a global flood?

ChristBearer said:

It's an interesting view that you think the scriptures got blown out of proportions... But I think God preserves His word for us accurately. I don't think He would allow it to be corrupt. I mean the Bible... It's something else!

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No one here is arguing that all Scripture has been mythologized to some extent, but parts of it certainly have. What's wrong with that?
Regardless, nowhere does the Bible claim itself to be "holy" or "perfectly accurate in all respects." That's a quality imposed on it by yourself and a minority of other fundamentalist Christians. Only God is holy. The Bible is not God.

EDIT: Having said all that, I should point out that the Bible is perfect in that it accomplishes exactly what it was written and assembled for: to bring people closer to God and to one another. The Scriptures only fall short when we impress on them a purpose for which they were not written; namely, fully scientific and historical accuracy.

"In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." (Gen 7:11)

"And the waters decreased continually until the tenth month: in the tenth [month], on the first [day] of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen." (Gen 8:5)

"And it came to pass at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made:" (Gen 8:6)

"And he stayed yet other seven days; and again he sent forth the dove out of the ark;
And the dove came in to him in the evening; and, lo, in her mouth [was] an olive leaf pluckt off: so Noah knew that the waters were abated from off the earth." (Gen 8:10-11)

If i didn't miss anything the olive tree had 47 days to grow, if we assume he grew immediately when the tops of the mountains were seen (Gen 8:5)


Something that also doesn't fit into a global flood viewpoint:
How did noah know from a returning dove that flies around locally (only for about one day) that all waters on the whole globe are abated?

If God promised not to allow another disaster as the flood, and the flood was local, hasn't He broken his promise?

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... there were no more huge floods destroying a whole culture in mesopotamia since Noah.

But I think God preserves His word for us accurately.

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God didn't dictate all the scriptures, scholars wrote it in the style of their time. So we have to study deeper to discover the meaning of scripture but it's not possible for someone to understand everything what is written - we all just know partly.

ChristBearer said:

Because it is what it says. I can't put it in a more simple way... I don't see how it can be taken as a local flood.

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Well, consider that the word translated as "earth" does not necessarily refer to the planet, even in modern English. It can also mean soil, dry land (as opposed to ocean) or land (as in territory, region).

In fact, the biblical writers had no idea the earth is a planet. In their day the word "planet" referred to a kind of star--the sort of star that does not remain in one place but moves from one constellation to another. (The word "planet" means "wanderer".) "Planet" was not used to refer to the satellites of stars until the 19th century. For biblical writers, a planet was always a heavenly body and the earth was definitely not a planet.

So when they wrote of the waters covering the earth, they could well have meant the land they were aware of, not the whole globe.

Why do you have a problem with this?

After all doesn't Jesus' genealogy include Noah? (For the person who thought it was just a story, not history)

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1. That still does not make the flood global.
2. Genealogies can be stories too.
3. What do you mean by "just" a story? Why, given the example of Jesus who did only what he saw his Father doing, would you say God never communicated in stories? Jesus certainly did.

There are many advantages to communicating in stories, especially in an overwhelmingly oral culture. Most ancient peoples, including the Israelites, never made a sharp distinction between story and history. That is a modern fetish and to impose it on the bible is to misread the text.

Why do creationists constantly demean non-factual literature? God uses it. Why insult it?

Well, consider that the word translated as "earth" does not necessarily refer to the planet, even in modern English.

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1. Sa 30:16 "And when he had brought him down, behold, [they were] spread abroad upon all the earth (kol erets), eating and drinking, and dancing, because of all the great spoil that they had taken out of the land of the Philistines, and out of the land of Judah."

So David had to run around the whole globe to catch the Amalekites ...