The Flood

[AV1611VET]

More than these, the amount of water needed to cover the Earth to a depth 20 feet higher than the mountains is absolutely staggering.

Like I said, God could have sent five times that much rain; and as far as the heights of the mountains, I told, I believe, MrGoodBytes that I'm not going to rule out the idea that the mountains back then were much higher than they are today.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

At first I was thinking because there is always higher winds at higher elevations, don;t know how the higher sea level would effect that, but also because there is nothing to obstruct the wind making it free to swirl the entire globe.

Yes, I've been thinking about this one: as all the water was pouring onto the Earth, the air would have been displaced at tremendous speeds. This alone would cause unprecidented winds.
Of course, this ignores the fact that all the water would be heated so much that all life would be poached long before the flood was over.

One could argue that the sea currents could bring warmth or that the cold air would be raised higher up I suppose, but right now higher usually means colder. Much colder when we are talking the tops of the highest mountians.

Aha! As I said above, all the water would poach the Earth, yes? Well, this is only after they have fallen a certain distance (because as they fall they speed up, and hence heat up). So, right up by the clouds the rain water would only be a little bit hot!
And as the infallible mathematics tells me, the heat from the rainwater would exactly counteract the cold from being so high up.

Furthermore, the reason it's so cold in the first place is the lack of air and prevalence of clouds. When the water reaches that kind of elevation, the relatively warm air from down below would displace the cold air up above.

Hoo hah!

The swells are caused by the wind the moon and the mountians under the water. Better try again on that one.

Ah, they probably weren't all that big...

 

[AV1611VET]

There are a ... lot of problems with Noah's Ark and the global flood plus the conditions at the end.

Nothing God can't handle, though. This is why I tell people that if they can't get past Genesis 1, they're in for a doosey of a ride, as it only gets worse from there.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Nothing God can't handle, though. This is why I tell people that if they can't get past Genesis 1, they're in for a doosey of a ride, as it only gets worse from there.

Which is a poor way of dodging questions asking about something other than Genesis 1.

 

[Patashu]

Nothing God can't handle, though. This is why I tell people that if they can't get past Genesis 1, they're in for a doosey of a ride, as it only gets worse from there.

And so Noah's Ark was constructed...

*sheen* PHYSICS BREAK!

...bam, the world's repopulated.

I mean, really, if you're going to pull the 'God can screw with anything and everything he wants to, and has' then why even bother speculating?

 

[AV1611VET]

It's always puzzled me why all marsupials went to Australia et al. All of them, without exception.

If this is true - (and I have no reason to doubt it) - then I would say that at the time of the Pangaea split, God "broke off" Australia, making sure all the marsupials went with it. Since only about 100 years had passed since the Flood when God did this, only a "handful" of marsupials would have been in existence; and given the size of Australia, I'd say the likelihood of getting all the marsupials in one shot was very good.

 

[AV1611VET]

Well that's convenient.


(in reply to AV)

"Miraculous" would be a more appropriate term.

 

[Patashu]

If this is true - (and I have no reason to doubt it) - then I would say that at the time of the Pangaea split, God "broke off" Australia, making sure all the marsupials went with it. Since only about 100 years had passed since the Flood when God did this, only a "handful" of marsupials would have been in existence; and given the size of Australia, I'd say the likelihood of getting all the marsupials in one shot was very good.

Don't you mean really bad, since Australia is small?

 

[AV1611VET]

Somehow I don't think he was 'defending the faith'...

I don't either, but that answer caught me off-guard and gave me goosebumps.

 

[AV1611VET]

Did God make all the marsupials go to Australia and prevent all but a small group from keeping the horsies?

I don't think so. Maybe the animals separated into - what's it called? - ecological niches (?) - and that would have helped.

 

[AV1611VET]

How many pairs of beetles did Noah take on the ark?

I don't know.

 

[AV1611VET]

Which is a poor way of dodging questions asking about something other than Genesis 1.

Do I look like I'm dodging questions?

 

[AV1611VET]

Don't you mean really bad, since Australia is small?

Only by comparison.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

If this is true - (and I have no reason to doubt it) - then I would say that at the time of the Pangaea split, God "broke off" Australia, making sure all the marsupials went with it.

Why would he do such a thing?

Since only about 100 years had passed since the Flood when God did this, only a "handful" of marsupials would have been in existence; and given the size of Australia, I'd say the likelihood of getting all the marsupials in one shot was very good.

Hardly. The marsupials on the Ark would be distributed from Mt. Ararat as uniformly as other animals from Australia's current climate. The odds that they all just so happened to wander onto the same area of land within 100 years (this is from Turkey to Australia, mind!) without leaving any breeding pairs behind, nor evidence of their trek, is mind-boggling

Do I look like I'm dodging questions?

I never said you were.

 

[AV1611VET]

Why would he do such a thing?

I don't know --- perhaps to put some distance between things for certain specific reasons hitherto undocumented.

Hardly. The marsupials on the Ark would be distributed from Mt. Ararat as uniformly as other animals from Australia's current climate. The odds that they all just so happened to wander onto the same area of land within 100 years (this is from Turkey to Australia, mind!) without leaving any breeding pairs behind, nor evidence of their trek, is mind-boggling

Yet it happened --- and yes, "mind-boggling" would be a natural reaction to a miraculous event.

If you move Australia up between Africa and India though, the distance is far shortened.

 

[Daffaforce]

God could have sent five times that much water if He chose to.

Only five times as much? Why couldn't he have sent six times as much? Or is there a limit to the extent that "God can do it"?

 

[milkyway]

I don't know.

That's a shame, because there are currently around 350,000 known species of beetles, with more being discovered all the time.

Where did they go? Maybe they hid in the cupboard under the stairs going to Mrs Noah's dressing-room?

And why does god love beetles so much anyway??

 

[AV1611VET]

That's a shame, because there are currently around 350,000 known species of beetles, with more being discovered all the time.

As I pointed out with the coyote, the number of species doesn't mean anything. You could have 1000 species of domestic dog, 1000 species of dingo, 1000 species of wolves, 1000 species of coyote, and all that would have had to board the ark were a male and female coyote.

Where did they go?

The question is more like where did they come from, not where did they go.

 

[FishFace]

Nothing God can't handle, though. This is why I tell people that if they can't get past Genesis 1, they're in for a doosey of a ride, as it only gets worse from there.

There's a parallel with poor sci-fi, here. In excellent science fiction, such as we don't really see nowadays, it is based on real science, plus a dose of speculation, plus a dose of story. Mediocre sci-fi is based on pseudoscience.
But either can be made wholly unsatisfying by showing something that should be impossible. Now, it's sci-fi, right - so anything is possible. But the point is, it's completely unbelievable if they start throwing the impossible around left right and centre.
So how does sci fi get away with doing the impossible, since, of course, that's half the fun. Easy - it builds an explanation of the impossible into the story. If the reader needs to explain away science holes, then it's bad sci fi.

Similar rules apply to the Bible. If you're a Biblical literalist then (apart from believing that Jesus is literally and simultaneously a footpath, a standard of correctness and a beam of photons) it is understandable that you believe God literally created the earth in six days, that Jesus really turned water into wine.
But it's not understandable when you just make stuff up that isn't in the Bible! When you say "God could have handled it" you're admitting that there's no way the story makes sense as told.

So what are we to believe - that God gave humans this story - because, according to AV, God wrote the Bible - but neglected to include any mention of the myriad violations of the laws of physics he put in place - or that the story was a myth written down by human beings who had no idea that it would be impossible, but explained some feature of the world? Why on earth would we believe the former, when the latter makes so much sense?
In short, why would God write "bad sci-fi?" I can see why fallible human beings would, but not God.

 

[FishFace]

As I pointed out with the coyote, the number of species doesn't mean anything. You could have 1000 species of domestic dog, 1000 species of dingo, 1000 species of wolves, 1000 species of coyote, and all that would have had to board the ark were a male and female coyote.

Only if, thereafter, dogs evolved at ludicrously high rates.